


In Time

by JustAnotherUnderstudy



Series: Nothing but Time [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Porn, Arguing, BAMF Olivia, Best Friends, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Gratuitous Smut, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Life and Such at MI6, MI6 Agents, New Trouble, No Good in Good-bye, POV Alternating, SMERSH, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Shameless Smut, Shower Sex, Spies & Secret Agents, Surprises, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tragedy, Trust, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2020-03-13 09:36:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 39
Words: 63,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18938269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherUnderstudy/pseuds/JustAnotherUnderstudy
Summary: Back when M was an agent, she met a man who would change her life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing the series I started yesterday. Too exhausted to think of anything else to say except "please send me some sun." :(

“Report,” M barked into the mic to 005.

“I don’t know what to tell you ma’am,” Ronson said. “Dubois set off some sort of incendiary device and I lost Bond’s signal.”

Across from her, Tanner was in contact with their back up team that was moving in to assist Bond and Ronson. He nodded to her unasked question.

“The back up team is in place, 005,” she told Ronson. “They will move in on your mark.”

M stood at the table and stared blankly at the display that flashed on the computerized top. Tanner’s voice as he communicated with the ground team faded into the background.

She couldn’t lose Bond now, not so close to losing George. She closed her eyes and focused on Tanner’s communications. When he told her they were ready to move in, M reached over and pressed a spot on the screen that allowed the team’s coms to be heard on the speaker in the room.

“Is there any sign of Bond?” M asked quietly into Ronson’s mic.

“Negative,” he replied. “I have eyes on the mark.”

“Proceed with caution,” she said.

M was silent as she listened and waited to see if her team was able to capture Dubois or if she would suffer another loss.

“Step away from the device,” she heard Ronson tell Dubois.

Tanner glanced at her with a concerned look. If Dubois had yet another bomb this could end badly.

“Alright, lay down with your arms and leg away from your body,” Ronson commanded.

There were scuffling sounds and breathing and the usual discussion as the team secured the area, but the arrest of Arnaud Dubois had, aside from the loss of 007, gone very easily.

“We’ve secured the building and we have Dubois in custody,” Ronson informed her.

“Alright,” she replied. “Bring him in. The forensics team is on the way to check the building. Have the backup team search it for Bond. He has to be in there somewhere. He can’t have just vanished.”

M turned off the speaker and returned to her chair while Tanner listened in and communicated with the two teams on the ground.

Finally, he pulled his earpiece out and turned it off.

“I’m sure they’ll find him,” Tanner said.

M nodded, though she wasn’t sure in the least.

“The jet has been on standby,” Tanner said.

“Alright, let me get my bag and we can leave,” she said.

Once Tanner left the room to retrieve his own bag, M leaned forward on the table and rested her head in her hands. She knew the team would not find Bond. All she needed to do was question DuBois to confirm what she suspected.

* * *

M did not respond with a roll of her eyes as she wanted when she walked into DuBois’ holding cell. The look of love he gave her was nauseating to her. As was the information Ronson had given her about how the maniac had been espousing his desire to see her since he’d been captured. Ronson had tired of it in the back of the transport van and had gagged the man. The gag was still in his mouth but M had Ronson remove it so she could question him.

“Mon ami, Leonore,” he said as he leaned forward. “It has been so many years.”

M gave him a bored look and ignored his words.

“What happened with the first agent who was sent to capture you?” she asked.

“Your son?” he asked.

“My what?”

“He looks so much like your husband,” DuBois told her.

“What do you mean?” M asked.

“I had to kill him,” DuBois said. “He was not the one for you. I know you must have grown lonely while I was in prison, but once I was free, we had to be together again.”

“You’ve been out of prison for nearly a decade,” she said.

“It took me so long to find you,” he said. “They hid you away from me in your ivory tower.”

“So you thought you’d woo me by murdering the man I love,” she said with no trace of emotion.

“You did not love him as you loved me,” DuBois said.

This time she did roll her eyes.

“You were a mark,” M told him. “Six sent me to you to assess the level of threat you might pose with your ‘mad scientist’ experiments.”

“No, we were meant to be,” he said. “You told me that.”

“I told you that while pretending to be a file clerk named Leonore from Brussels,” M said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dubois shook his head.

“Where is the agent?” M asked again.

“I have no idea,” he said. “My device was finally perfected, and he could be anywhere in time.”

M closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them again she gave him a cold glare.

“You are worthless to me,” she said.

Then she stood to leave and Ronson regagged the man before he could speak again.

“Get him back to England as soon as possible,” she told Ronson as they walked away from the cell.

“Is the device at HQ yet?” she asked Tanner

“Yes, M, Q contacted me five minutes ago to let me know it had arrived,” he said.

“Tell him to be extremely cautious with it,” she said.

She and Tanner left Ronson to handle DuBois and headed directly back to the airport to return to London.

“Did you get anything useful out of him?’ Tanner asked.

“I’ll tell you when we return to Six,” M said.

She needed to think through the events. Now that DuBois had confirmed her worst fears, she had to figure out how to move forward. If Q could figure out how to work DuBois’ device, maybe she could save herself and everyone involved more than a little heartache.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> M makes a decision to change the past, regardless its affect on the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there are any mistakes, forgive me. I'll try to correct them tomorrow. Since I've decided this is going to be my break story, I must post a chapter a day. And now I'm really tired because it's been a really long day. :D
> 
> Basic stuff you should know. Q is John Cleese's Q. This is still between QoS and Skyfall. Bond's picture looks like Craig did in Munich. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408306/mediaviewer/rm592718592 Only a little happier. :)

M headed straight to Q department when she returned to Six, Tanner on her heels. They found Q in an observation room using a robotic arm to examine the desktop computer sized gold box the ground team had recovered from Dubois’ building in Paris.

“M, I’ve just barely begun looking at it,” he said. “The only thing I can assure you of is that it’s not a bomb.”

“No, Q, it’s not a bomb,” she said. “It’s a time machine.”

She felt their eyes on her as she stared at the device that had sent James back into the past.

“A, uh, I’m sorry,” Q stuttered. “What?”

“It’s a time machine,” M said, as if it was the most reasonable thing she'd ever said. “Dubois has sent Bond into the past and I need you to figure out how to return him as quickly as possible.”

Q looked between M and the machine several times before shaking his head in disbelief.

“Alright, I’ll do my best,” Q said.

“You’ll need to do better than that,” M quipped. “Time is of the utmost. He cannot remain there.”

M took an involuntary shaky breath to ward off the goose pimples that suddenly erupted on her skin at the thought of why James needed to be returned quickly.

Q nodded and M turned to leave and return to her office.

Once back in the office, she had Tanner give her an update on the extradition of Dubois to London.

“The papers are going through,” he said. “Ronson should be able to return with him in the next day or two.”

M nodded and sat back in her chair. Tanner waited for her, though she could see the curiosity brimming in his eyes.

“Do you have my real file?” she asked.

“I’ll go get it,” Tanner said.

When he left she stood and walked over to the window and looked out across the Thames and the city and thought of the past. If Q could just return James as quickly as possible, he wouldn’t suffer the terrible fate he had the first time. While M might ordinarily have allowed things to play out, she was too personally invested in this situation. Yet, she could not recuse herself.

She heard Tanner return and invited him to sit with her on the sofa. She could see a gleam in his eyes as he became aware that she was going to explain how she knew where James was.

“Did you look through the file?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I went through all your old cases.”

“This wasn’t an old case,” she said quietly. “Did you look at the personal information.”

He shook his head and M reached to take the file from him. She opened it to the section she wanted and smiled sadly at the photograph she found.

“This is a picture of my first husband,” she said, pulling the photo out and handing it to Tanner.

He looked up at her sharply after seeing it.

“But this is,” he stopped and shook his head.

“Yes, it’s James,” she said.

Tanner opened his mouth, then shut it. M smiled and had pity on it.

“It’s a long story,” she said. “Perhaps we should have my secretary order us some lunch.”

M made the arrangements and returned to her seat on the sofa with Tanner.

“As soon as we figured out it was Dubois who had set the bomb,” she said. “I realized I was at a time I had known would come. I just hadn’t all the details. I had hoped this time would be different. But either way, James was the only choice for me to send.”

Tanner nodded. He alone knew how much M trusted James, namely, enough to even hang her career on him.

“James is in Paris, but in 1975,” she said. “I don’t think Dubois knows where he’s sent him, he’s under the delusion that James is my son.”

Tanner looked back at the picture of James from the file and nodded.

“Dubois was operating then and had some quite fanciful ideas about science,” she said. “He had published an article about how he wanted to use time travel to reverse the past. The thing that caught our government’s eyes was the desire to change key points in several historic wars between Britain and France, thereby making France the world empire England had been.

“I was sent to assess the threat,” she said. “It was very difficult to get close to him, but as a female, we felt that I had the greatest chance.”

She chuckled at that point and shook her head.

“Martin Grey was my head at the time,” she said. “He would one day go on to be M and would be the first to promote a woman to 00 status, but at that time, the female agents were only field agents.”

There was a knock at the door and M’s secretary entered with some sandwiches and drinks. She left them on the coffee table and returned to her office, closing M’s door behind her.

“So, I was in Paris,” M continued. “And I was in that building where we recovered Dubois’ machine.

“In 1975 it was a popular club,” M said. “I had made contact with a man who helped connect Dubois to anyone who might have a part he needed, including plutonium.”

M paused for a moment as she recalled that night, she tried to never think of it, because it had all ended so tragically that the memory held little joy for her anymore.

“I was plying my trade, if you will,” she said, grateful that Tanner was mature enough not to blush.

She’d been lounging on the bar countertop, cigarette holder in hand, her flapper style dress hopefully revealing enough to convince the man she wanted a little fun, when her life was suddenly and unexpectedly turned upside down.

“The man’s name was Michel, and I was going by Leonore,” she told Tanner. “I was a clerk for a small firm in Brussels that dealt with gold fittings, like gold nuts and bolts, for the ridiculously rich person who wanted the ‘Midas touch’ to everything.

“Dubois had been studying the effects of different metals for his machine and was known to be looking for gold for several parts,” she said. “We’d hoped he wanted these small parts as well. So we’d set up a business, that interestingly did rather well while it was up.”

She smiled and found herself lost in her thoughts for a moment before returning to Tanner.

“All of a sudden, there was this man, literally falling out of the sky,” she said. “It was all I could do to roll off the countertop and avoid being smashed by him.

“And that, Tanner, is how I first met James Bond.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do I really have to summarize? I mean, school is out and I just really don't want to. ;D

Olivia flipped herself off the countertop and landed on her feet. She hadn’t brought a gun, fortunately, or else she might have completely blown her cover in that moment. 

The man who had appeared out of nowhere above her hit the counter hard and yelled a loud shout of pain. The momentum kept him moving until he rolled off the counter, onto the bar prep area behind it, then onto the floor behind the bar.

Olivia cast a side glance at Michel, but he wasn’t looking at her at all. He looked up into the air, then down at the counter, a look of shock on his face. Olivia ran around the counter and began to speak in French to the man.

“Are you alright,” she asked, though it had to be a ridiculous question.

The man moaned and pushed himself over onto his back. Olivia looked him over to see if anything was cut. There was some broken glass around, but none of it appeared to be embedded in the man.

She moved closer to him to check him over to see if anything was broken as Michel came around the counter at the other end.

“Who is he?” Michel asked.

Olivia just shook her head. She’d never seen the man before. He must be someone of wealth, however, from the look of his clothes, despite their now crumpled appearance. He had a light colored wool suit and silk tie, though the design of both was not something Olivia recognized right away.

She ran her hands across his chest and pressed carefully to check for any broken ribs. Then she began to check his arms, all the while trying to get him to answer her questions about his pain. She found no broken bones, but she did find a gun inside a holster and needed to distract Michel so she could get that from the man.

“Call an ambulance,” she said to Michel.

When Michel didn’t move, she looked up at him.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “That would be horrible for business.”

Olivia shook her head but didn’t press the issue. She continued her examination, then tried to get the man to sit up. He finally opened his eyes as she and Michel maneuvered him into a sitting position. He squinted at her as if he was having trouble with his vision.

“Em?” he asked.

“Sorry, my name’s Leonore,” she said. “Do you think you can stand?”

“You look so much like Em,” he said, speaking English.

“I don’t speak very good English, sir,” she told him in French.

He was still looking at her as if he knew her and Olivia was very nervous. If he was English, maybe he recognized her from London. 

“I’ll take him to the hospital myself,” she told Michel. “Help me get him on his feet.”

As she and Michel managed to get the man standing Olivia slipped her hand under his jacket and removed the weapon. She had Michel hold him up while she grabbed her handbag with her back to them and slid the gun inside. Then Olivia began to tug him in the direction of the front door.

“No, no,” Michel protested. “Not the front door.”

Olivia sighed then helped him take the man to the back door and out to the alley. She left them together and ran for her car. When she pulled up, she saw that the man was on the ground again. She shook her head. Michel was a truly useless man whom she wouldn’t have given a second glance had she not been sent to seduce him to gain access to one of his buyers.

They managed to get the man into Olivia’s car and she drove quickly away.

“Where are you hurt,” she finally asked him in English.

From the corner of her eye she saw the man look up and study her.

“You are Em,” he said. “What happened to your face?”

“My face?” she asked. “There is nothing wrong with my face. And my name is not Em.”

He continued to look at her for another moment before leaning back into the passenger seat.

“God, my head hurts,” he said.

She considered momentarily actually taking him to the hospital but she needed to assess the threat first. If this man thought he knew her, it could be a problem. If her cover wasn’t already blown, she needed to make sure she kept it that way.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“What?” he asked in return. “What’s my name? What kind of question is that?”

 

Olivia rolled her eyes.

“It’s a perfectly reasonable question,” she snapped. 

“Bond,” he said. “James Bond.”

“Well, Mr. Bond,” she said. “I’m going to have to ask you a few more questions.”

“I have to ask you first,” he said. “How do you look so young?”

“What?” she asked.

“I just saw you two weeks ago and you looked normal, now you look like, I don’t know, thirty?”

Olivia took a breath and excused the question on his hit to the head. She decided to leave the rest of her questions until she got him to the safe house that had been set up if she had a suspect she needed to question.

Once she had him inside the safe house, Bond watched her closely.

“You have to be her,” he said. “She didn’t have a daughter.”

“Mr. Bond,” she said. “Just have a seat and tell me what I want to know.”

She waved him to the couch while she took one of the kitchen chairs and sat across from him. She pulled his gun out to show him she had it. And at that point she finally had a look at it.

“What sort of gun is this?” she asked.

It was a Walther, she could see that, but it looked different from any she’d seen.

“Special from Q bureau,” Bond said.

The hairs on the back of Olivia’s neck stood on end and she pointed her own gun at him.

“Stand up, Mr. Bond,” she said.

He gave her a bemused look and stood, his hands up and to the side.

“Strip,” she commanded.

That wiped the smirk off Bond’s face as he blanched.

“What?” he asked in disbelief.

“You heard me,” she said. “Take off your clothes.”

“Oh, god, now I know this is a dream,” he said. “This sort of thing only happens in my dreams.”

“You have dreams about women pointing guns at you and telling you to take off your clothes,” she said. “Freud would have a field day with you.”

“Oh, god, don’t mention Freud right now,” he said.

“Be quiet and strip,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“If you know Q bureau, then you would know why I would tell you to do that,” she said.

“If you think I’d be too ashamed to escape naked, you don’t know me nearly as well as you think,” Bond said, his smirk returning.

“I don’t know you at all, Mr. Bond,” she said, holding her gun steady on him. 

Something about that bothered him, she thought, as she watched the emotions pass over his face quickly, from pride then surprise then something akin to hurt, which confused Olivia.

She watched as his hands shook as he began to undress himself. Slowly, he began to talk quietly, as if only to himself. His words were those to assure himself that this was just a bad dream and that he was going to wake soon.

When he got to his shorts, Olivia stopped him.

“Why do you think this is a dream, Mr. Bond?” she asked, ignoring the questions she should be asking him.

“You don’t know me at all,” he said, quietly. “Em knows me better than anyone.”

“You can sit back down,” she said. “Does your head still hurt?”

Bond shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t sound very convincing, but Olivia couldn’t afford to wait.

“How do you know Q bureau?” she asked.

“I’m an agent,” Bond answered, sounding rather numb.

“For whom?” Olivia asked.

“For MI6,” he stated.

“I’ve never heard of you,” she said. “What is your code?”

“007,” he said.

Olivia knew that couldn’t be true. She knew and had worked with all the double-os and this was not 007.

She was about to tell him just that when she noticed he was staring behind her at something that seemed to surprise him.

“How can that be?” he asked.

She stood carefully and moved to the side of the room so she could see what he was looking at without turning her back to him.

“What?” she asked.

“Is that the year?” he asked. “1975?”

“What? Of course,” she said. “I really think you must be concussed or something.”

His eyes hadn’t shown signs of concussion, nor did he have any other symptoms, but the blow to his head must have done some damage if he was surprised that the year was 1975.”

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It’s 2010.”

He turned to her and the look on his face was one of dawning realization.

“The cars,” he said. “As we were driving here they were all very old cars, but they all looked fairly new.”

Olivia wasn’t sure where he was going with this but she waited to see if he would reveal something on his own before resuming questioning.

“And you,” he said. “You look barely thirty.”

He shook his head.

“No, if this is 1975, then you would be thirty-five years old,” he concluded, correctly Olivia thought.

“This can’t be,” he said. “This is impossible.”

He sat hard on the sofa and Olivia kept her gun trained on him. This display was far from ordinary. Either the hit on his head was severe enough to send him over the edge, or he’d been balmy before tonight.

“Why do you think it’s 2010?” she asked.

“It was,” he said. “But when I was trying to take Dubois into custody, he set off some sort of explosion.”

His voice faded, but Olivia seized on Dubois’ name.

“What do you know of Dubois?” she asked.

Bond shook his head.

“Only that he,” Bond stopped himself from saying more by shutting his mouth tight and shaking his head.

Olivia was about to demand he continue when he did.

“He set off a bomb, and you sent me after him,” he said.

“In 2010,” she said, not sure what to believe because he was acting in such a convincing manner that it was difficult to say if he wasn’t sane.

“Yes, I work for Six in 2010,” he said. “You promoted me to 00 in 2006.”

Olivia laughed.

“I promoted an agent to double-0 status?” she said. “Only M can do that.”

He turned to face her and when he did, Olivia took a sharp breath.

“No, don’t say anything more,” she told him urgently. “I don’t want to know. You can’t tell me.”

Olivia had lived a long time on instinct. She’d been a field agent for over a decade. She usually had a good read on when a person was telling her the truth, and she was fairly certain Bond was. With what she already knew about Dubois’ experiments, it seemed to her that the man had finally been successful and she was staring that success in the face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James POV. What ever is going on in his head? And how will he keep from "messing up" M's future?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone back and forth all day with whether I'm going to use James' POV for this story since it is really a story framed within another story, namely Olivia is telling Tanner. But, I figured since it's just fanfiction it would be OK. Now, when they want to make a movie out of it, maybe I'll change it for the book. ;)

James lay on the sofa in the living room of the safe house and listened to the sounds as the city moved about them. He should be sleeping, he knew, but his thoughts were flying in a thousand different directions.

He was in 1975. And in the bedroom, hopefully getting some sleep, was his future boss, the woman he would fall in love with in another thirty years.

Slowly, he breathed in and out, trying to calm himself. He was trained for a lot of things, but showing up in the past was never in the manual.

He and M had talked after she had realized James was being honest and wasn’t just some nutter.

No, not _M_ , he reminded himself, _Olivia_.

A smile came to his face as he recalled the time she’d threatened to have him shot if he ever said her name. He wondered if she’d known then. Probably, she knew everything.

* * *

“What did she tell you, er, what did _I_ tell you about Dubois?” Olivia asked as she set out the tea before him.

She had let him put his clothes back on and they sat at the kitchen table to talk. His gun was still in her possession but James didn’t need it. What he needed was to figure out what had happened and exactly how to fix it.

“Only that he was someone you’d thought locked up for good,” he said.

Olivia gave him a dubious look.

“That’s all I said?” she asked.

“There wasn’t much else to be said,” he explained. “You said the file was still Eyes Only and that I wasn’t going to be authorized to see it.”

She nodded at this, strangely satisfied, James thought.

“You don’t find that annoying, as an agent?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Of course not,” she said, stirring some dry creamer into her tea. “Six can’t have hundreds of agents running around with all the state secrets in their heads. It would be a disaster.”

He stared at her for a moment before taking a sip of his tea.

“You don’t agree,” she stated.

“It’s not important,” he mumbled.

He watched as her eyes narrowed and waited uncomfortably for her assessment. He didn’t usually mind it. In fact, it was in many ways pleasurable to him. One of those things that went on between them that he had always thought was as close to intimacy as he could get with her. However, it seemed he was wrong and it was just something Olivia did.

“Your opinion aside,” Olivia continued, done with her assessment, the answer to which she would never share, he knew. “I’m not sure how much I ought to tell you.”

“Well, then, I suppose we’re at an impasse,” he said with a smirk.

“Look, you obviously have figured out what Dubois was working on if you have figured out you’ve travelled through time,” she said. “But she, er, _I_ must have wanted whatever is in the file to stay there.”

She took another sip of her tea as she waited for him to see her point.

Finally, James sighed and conceded.

“Yes, I get it,” he sighed. “If any of this information was to get out, if one of the thousands of crazies out there were to learn there is a real possibility of time travel, we’d all be in a bit of a mess.”

They finished their tea in silence and James snuck looks at Olivia as she thought through their situation. She looked so different, he thought. Not just that her skin was smooth and her hair was blonde, but that all the hard edges he’d always known were not quite solid yet. One moment he could see the steel in her eyes he was so familiar with, the next there was a softness he had only seen after her husband had died.

They finished their tea and James offered to clean up. Her eyes flew open wide as he stood and took the cup from her hands.

“What?” he said. “I’m just going to wash the dishes.”

She narrowed her eyes shrewdly and glared so ferociously, James began to feel it in his skin.

“I’ve been an agent for more than a decade and no man has ever offered to do such a thing,” she said.

James shook his head as he turned on the hot water.

“Well, consider that something you have to look forward to,” he said, trying to shake the cold feeling her look had given him.

“Seems odd that men will have learned to clean up after themselves within less than a century from now,” she said.

“Why, M, I never would have thought you such a misandrist,” he quipped.

When she didn’t reply, he turned to look at her.

“Please, don’t call me that, Bond,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper.

There was that same sense of fear she’d had earlier when she’d figured out he was indeed from a future time.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was a slip. I’ll try to be more careful. It’s just that when I’m not looking at you, and I hear your voice, I forget.”

He gave her a weak smile and turned back to the dishes. After a few minutes she excused herself. She returned with some blankets and a pillow and left them on the sofa for him. Then she retreated to the bedroom and shut the door. James felt it in his body when he heard her click the lock over.

This Olivia didn’t know him, he reminded himself as he made up his bed. She couldn’t be expected to trust him in such a short space of time.

* * *

Just the thoughts of the conversation had his mind whirling. Olivia’s lack of trust in him, exactly what was in Dubois’ file that she had left out when she sent him after the man in 2010, so many things to consider. Yet it was the thought of her husband that kept coming to the forefront of his thoughts. What if he messed up everything for her? If she was single now, then she still had to marry her first husband before she could marry George Mansfield. She would marry George in ten years.

James threw the covers off and stood to begin pacing as he tried to sort out his thoughts. God, so many things could go wrong with him here. He could ever ruin Olivia’s chances of becoming M. She should have had him hauled in and interrogated, but she hadn’t even notified the local station head of the situation. Was she on zero contact? She hadn’t said and he didn’t think she would even if she asked.

The bedroom door opened and James turned quickly to see Olivia lean against the door jamb and fold her arms across her chest. Her hair was rumpled and all the make-up she’d had on when he’d first seen her was gone. He forced his eyes to stay on her face and ignored the fact that she was wearing a gown that came only to her knees and that the glimpse he’d caught of her feet was more thrilling than he’d expected.

“This is an old place,” she said. “When you go about pacing back and forth, the whole damn building shakes like an earthquake.”

She yawned and he apologized. She just waved it off and headed to the kitchen.

“I suppose it’s a lot to process,” she said as she started to make some coffee. “I can’t even imagine what a state I’d be in.”

She had that softness to her again. That thing so rarely seen in the future but must have been a part of her everyday life here. Or, James acknowledged, it might be that he didn’t know her as well as he liked to think he did. She was probably always like this with George. He joined her in the kitchen and tried not to be jealous, yet again, of the man he’d never met.

There were some oats in a sealed package in the cupboard so James pulled them out and opened a tin of evaporated milk. He mixed them together with a bit of water in a pot and started it on the stove. Olivia watched him as he did so.

“Sorry, I forgot to act like a Neanderthal,” he joked.

He was rewarded with a smile and real laughter from her. He had rarely attained the former and never the latter. The sound was soft on his ears, and oddly contagious. He found himself fighting a smile, something he hadn’t done for real in too many years.

The coffee timer interrupted them and Olivia pulled out some mugs and the sugar and creamer to set on the table. James stirred the cereal and tried to trap the memory of Olivia’s smile in his mind. He wondered how it would look on her in thirty years. He wondered if he’d ever even see her that way again.

“I have to go back tonight,” Olivia broke into his suddenly morbid thoughts. “Hopefully I can salvage things.”

“Yes, sorry about that,” he said as he pulled the cereal off the heat.

“Not really your fault,” she said. “And Michel is just stupid enough that I shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

“Those are always the best marks,” he said as he spooned the cereal into bowels.

“You’ll need to stay here,” she said. “I can’t have you showing up and pretending to be a hero.”

“Pretending?” he cocked an eyebrow at her as he sat at the table.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I need you following me around to make sure I’m fine.”

He gave her his best haughty look.

“Excuse me, who did the dishes?” he said. “I’m sure I can manage to stay out of your hair just fine.”

James surprised even himself at this deflection, but he forgot that when she smiled and laughed again. He felt himself growing warm as he listened to the sound. Internally he chastised himself that he needed to keep his head on straight or his M might never be his after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little discussion between James and Olivia. (Note the rating change. It will probably continue to go up.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is sad. But it is sad for a reason. Trust me, I am going somewhere with it, not just torturing you. :)
> 
> Note: I changed some stuff from canon. :D

Olivia held her breath as she put the key in the lock of the safe house. She hoped that James had done as she asked and stayed put. At least she hadn’t seen him at the club. But whether or not he stuck around at all was still in question. 

She shook her head. No, James would still be there. Olivia had learned to read people out of necessity and James wasn’t going anywhere she didn’t send him. He was still thinking of her as M. Pushing that last, terrifying thought from her mind, she opened the door.

James was sitting on the sofa and looked up at her. Olivia knew immediately there was something wrong, despite the smile on his face. It was forced, not looking anything like the smiles she’d seen earlier.

“What happened?” she asked.

He just shook his head.

“You’re not OK,” she said.

He closed his eyes and took a slow breath.

“It’s 1975,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied and sat carefully next to him.

“In three years.”

He stopped and gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Several more deep breaths later, James finally spoke in a soft whisper.

“My parents are going to die.”

Olivia felt his words like a twist of a knife in her gut.

“What are you going to do?” she asked after a moment.

James sat quietly for a few minutes before he opened his eyes. In them, Olivia saw so much sadness, but worse was the resignation.

“I can’t do anything,” he said.

She watched his eyes glance up and across the room in the direction of the phone hanging on the kitchen wall. He didn’t speak again and Olivia finally sat back on the sofa and lost herself in her own thoughts.

They sat together quietly for nearly a quarter of an hour. Olivia thought it odd that it felt natural to be this way with him. She had worked with other agents and usually the silence between them was more a matter of avoidance. She didn’t want to get to know them, there was a job to be done and when she left she returned to the quiet of her small flat and relished not having to be around another human being.

This silence was something different. This was a comfortable silence. The type that two people who have known each other for many years are able to achieve. She wondered if it had something to so with James, since he knew her in the future, he might be more comfortable with her. Or if it was because she now knew they had this horrible thing in common.

“If it was me,” Olivia said quietly. “If I was somehow transported back to before 1953, if I could stop that terrible night from happening to my own parents.”

She shook her head and shook of the chill that began to creep in at the memory.

“I don’t know if I could stop myself,” she continued. “Though now I can think logically that it would be a bad thing because it would change so much. If I was given that opportunity.”

Her voice faded as the memories began to flood her mind unbidden.

Shortly, she felt James’ warm hand on hers. He squeezed it and, instead of removing it as Olivia had expected, he left it there, gently holding her hand in his. She assumed he must feel the need for a physical connection. 

“You were thirteen,” he finally said. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

She turned her head toward him and gave him a brief, strained smile before turning away again.

“I always wonder if death follows me,” she said, unsure why, she had never spoken with anyone about this before. “When I was at the university, I was engaged. He was killed in an intersection by a lorry that had run the light.”

She shook her head, mostly at herself for dredging up the painful memories.

“I was always there,” she said. “Always watching, but always unscathed physically.”

“You saw them all die?” James asked. “Were you in the car with them?”

Olivia shook her head.

“Collin was driving in front of me,” she said. “It was his birthday and I’d insisted on taking him out to dinner but he needed to study for an exam the next day so the compromise was that we’d drive separately and then our friends and I would go on while he went back and studied. We were right behind him.”

The breath she took was shaky and she assumed he could figure out the rest.

“But my parents didn’t die in a car wreck,” she said. “They were murdered by a friend of theirs. He shot them both after forcing them to sign over their accounts to him. But he left me alive. I don’t know why.”

They were silent again. She concentrated on the feel of James stroking his thumb on the back of her hand. Comfort had never been important to her. After her parents murder, she couldn’t trust anyone and had shut herself off for years before meeting Collin.

“You parents were killed in a car accident?” she asked after a while.

He nodded.

“How old were you?” she asked.

“Almost eleven,” he told her. “My father decided they were going to take a trip without me over my birthday.”

He shook his head and Olivia had to refrain at commenting on what she thought was cruelty by his father.

“I begged them not to go, but he said it wasn’t an important birthday and they’d bring me something from the trip,” James said. “My mother tried to argue with him, but my father always got his way.

“But I always feels like death follows me, as well,” he admitted. “Only a few years later I met a boy at school whose father took me in. They were killed in an avalanche, their bodies weren’t recovered.”

This time Olivia found herself squeezing James’ hand then beginning to rub her thumb along his. He looked down at their hands and gave them a small, but sincere smile.

“A few years ago, I fell in love with the wrong girl,” he said. “She turned out to be a traitor, and she committed suicide.”

“Oh, James, that’s terrible,” Olivia said.

He shrugged. 

“I suppose we could argue about which was worse,” he said. “It was all bad for us, it sounds like.”

Olivia nodded and leaned back on the sofa again.

“Well, aren’t we a pari?” she asked rhetorically.

James chuckled next to her.

After several more minutes he spoke again.

“How did things go with Michel?” he asked.

“Pretty much how I expected,” she said.

She felt his eyes on her as if was waiting for her to say more, but she only smirked and shook her head.

“You know I can’t say anything,” she said. “Besides, it really was very dull. He hasn’t got the depth of teaspoon.”

“Hopefully that will work in your favor,” James said.

As the tension of their conversation eased from her body, Olivia began to feel the lack of sleep over the previous 48-hours.

“I should get some sleep,” she said, stifling a yawn.

He nodded.

“I promise I won’t cause any earthquakes, so you should be able to get a good night’s rest,” he said.

Olivia chuckled and stood.

Once in the bedroom, she undressed and then bathed in the en suite. When she crawled into the bed, the house was silent, but the city was slowly waking around them. Olivia closed her eyes and drifted to sleep as she tried to figure out how to tell James that tonight she’d be staying with Michel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, so the thing I changed was the way James' parents died. I don't like it for Craig's Bond because that's just too much death by skiing. Really, car accidents are far more likely.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good-byes are best done without any words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember reading something about John Le Carre's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (which was my favorite book of his). I'm not sure if it was Le Carre or another person who said that it was realistic of spy work because it was so boring. :D So, I'm sorry for the build up. At some point we'll have something exciting.

Olivia was awakened by her alarm in the early evening. It was unusual for her to sleep so long, even when she wasn’t working. She usually woke long before her alarm went off. It was equally unusual to feel so rested.

She lay in bed listening to James moving about in the living area. It sounded as if he was getting the coffee started. In moments, the scent drifted into her room. She smiled and shook her head. She had certainly never had any agent take care of her. In fact, she hadn’t had anyone take care of her since her parents had died.

The coffee wouldn’t get into her without her moving, so she threw the covers off and got out of bed and dressed.

By the time she walked out of the room, she could smell the beans and sausage. On the counter she saw the two cans of All Day Breakfast and mentally went through their supplies. She’d have to have James get some food while she was out this evening or they’d have nothing left.

“Morning,” he said quietly as he glanced at her.

She noticed his eyes moved swiftly down to her feet, linger for a few seconds, then more quickly back to the pot of beans.

Well, that was interesting, she thought.

As she sat, she took a look at her bare feet to try to see what he was looking at. She was no blushing virgin, she knew about fetishes, often had to use them to her advantage, but James didn’t seem the type. But who was a type for these things?

He served her the breakfast in a bowl and brought the powdered creamer along with her mug of coffee. Then settled down and began to tuck into the meal himself.

After a while, Olivia leaned back in her chair and watched James as she drank her coffee. Shortly, he noticed and stopped eating, turning to her. He had a question on his face at first, then he relaxed and appeared to be waiting. Normally, people would ask what she wanted. It seemed James knew what she was doing, and further, he wasn’t bothered by it.

“I still do that?” she asked.

He smiled slightly and nodded.

Olivia went back to her coffee and turned to look at the calendar. She had six days left before she was due to return to Brussels and operate under her persona while she waited for Dubois to take the bait. Michel had already taken his. And that reminded her that she still had to tell James about tonight.

“We’re probably running low on provisions,” she said. “This place isn’t really set up for a long term stay like this.”

“No, it’s just used for holding and interrogating until transfer,” he said.

She took a deep breath before starting with an explanation, but he interrupted.

“It’s alright,” he said. “You needed to interrogate me.”

He stood and started gathering the dishes.

“And now you know all my secrets,” he said, giving her a wink.

“All of them?” she scoffed. “I doubt that.”

“One day,” he said so quietly, Olivia barely heard him. “One day, you will know all my secrets.”

Not for the first time, Olivia wondered what exactly was the nature of the relationship between her future self and this agent. But she couldn’t imagine it was what he seemed to be intimating. She would be far too old by the time he met her.

Shaking those thoughts from her head, she decided she’d avoided the needed discussion long enough.

“I’ll have to have you restock the kitchen today,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve already discovered the cash, and I’ll leave you the key so you can get back in.”

James only nodded and finished washing up the dishes. She took her coffee mug to him when she was done and noticed the tension on his face.

“You’re staying with him tonight,” he said.

So, he’d figured it out. Of course, he had, she thought. He is an agent himself.

“Yes,” she told him.

“You’ll be careful,” he said.

Olivia’s first thought was to be incensed at his patronizing statement. But in the next second she realized that James had absolutely no one here but her. If something happened, well, he might as well have been sent to another planet as it was the same result.

“Of course,” she told him.

It wouldn’t do to linger, she thought. So, she took her bag and left the key on the kitchen table while he was washing up the pot from breakfast.

* * *

~~14 hours later~~

Olivia pulled the car up in front of the safe house. She really should have gone back to her hotel, but she’d told herself she needed to check on James. It wasn’t really a bother, it was just that she didn’t want to be around anyone now. She just wanted to get a real shower and wash the smell of that man off of her.

It was never good, regardless how much she tried to “enjoy” it. At least she didn’t know that Michel had ever killed anyone. Those were the worst. She had to override all her sensibilities then.

She wondered what she would become when she was older. James could tell her, but Olivia was beginning to get the feeling that his view of her was rather biased, if not completely tainted by what she could only consider inappropriate feelings.

Finally, she opened the door and went to the house.

James played it well. He waited the appropriate number of seconds to make it seem as if he hadn’t been watching for her. But Olivia saw in his eyes the questions he didn't want to ask. She wanted to be angry, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk with anyone. So, she headed to the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

How dare he? She thought to herself. He must have done this same sort of thing many times. He was a double-0, there was no way he could excuse this attitude.

She was removing her clothes as she walked toward the en suite and ranted to herself in her mind. But she was stopped up short when she entered the small room.

Along the rim of the tub, where the cheap soaps Six had provided for the house had been when she’d left the previous evening, were new soaps, this brand far more costly than Olivia would ever pay for herself.

She picked up the wrapped bar of soap and smelled it. It had a light scent of gardenia. Olivia liked the scent, but she never used scented soaps because they really did seem like a lavish treat.

With the soap was a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of bubble bath, both the same scent as the soap.

Olivia was torn between anger and something she couldn’t put her finger on. It felt like confusion, but more intense. She wasn’t usually this confused, but Bond seemed to have thrown her of her game. She had no idea what he wanted. One time he seemed to be flirting with her, the next he seemed to be treating her with more respect that most men did.

She decided to wait on trying to figure it all out and just make use of the bath. The smell permeated her senses and relaxed her and, as she sank back into the hot tub and felt the bubbles press in around her, she realized he understood. And that was certainly an odd feeling.

* * *

When she returned to the bedroom thirty minutes later, she could swear she smelled warm strawberry compote. Dressing quickly, she opened to door to find James at the kitchen table, serving up what appeared to be strawberry blintzes.

“Oh, my,” she said as she approached him. “I haven’t had blintzes in years.”

“It’s alright?” he asked, looking concerned.

“What? Of course,” she answered. “They’re my favorite.”

She glanced up and caught his knowing smile before he could cover it up.

“But you knew that,” she said.

“Well, I, uh, might have noticed when you ordered it once or twice,” he said, feigning innocence.

Olivia just shook her head and began to eat when he joined her.

“Oh, these are delicious, James,” she said.

He could tell he seemed quite proud as a result of her comment.

“You know, if you get stuck here, maybe you could learn to be a chef,” she said.

“I don’t know if I want to cook for that many people,” he said. “And I’d probably just end up reporting the restaurants I worked at for 2010 health code violations.”

They laughed together then ate in pleasant silence until they were about half-way through, then she asked James what he’d gone out and done while she was gone.

“I went to the market first, then went out again and had some dinner and coffee at a cafe around the corner,” he said. “You should try it. It was very nice.

“After that, I found a movie house a few blocks from here and watched "Zorro,"” he said.

“I haven’t seen it,” she said.

“Well, there are so many different versions,” he said. “It is a bit strange to see a film from this time.”

“I suppose they are much better in the future,” she said.

He nodded.

“That’s something else I have to look forward to?” she smirked.

He laughed and then they finished their meal.

Olivia helped with the dishes, washing while James dried and put them in the cupboards. She had intended to go straight to bed when they finished that chore, but James asked her a question she didn’t want to answer at that moment.

“You’ll be staying with him now?”

Olivia nodded.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Michel would be a fool not to ask you to stay with him for the rest of your trip,” he said. “I’m surprised it’s taken him this long.”

“Well, there was the matter of a man falling out of the sky,” she said, giving him a fake admonishing look.

“Now, I did apologize for that,” he said.

They smiled at each other a moment and Olivia was forced to avert her eyes to stop the moment from becoming more than it should. James didn’t belong in this time, and she couldn’t do anything to tie him here.

“I’ll have to call my head when I go back to the hotel tonight,” she said. “I haven’t updated him because I’m on limited contact.”

James nodded.

“I suspected something like that,” he said.

“He’s in London,” she said. “So it won’t take him long to arrive after I tell him about you.”

“He’ll want to question me,” he said.

“Yes, but he won’t do anything extreme,” she assured him. “He’ll take my word for you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Anyway, his name’s Martin Grey,” she said. “He’ll show appropriate identification and he’ll have your code word.”

Olivia raised her hand to ask him to wait a moment then she returned to her room and pulled her ID from the secret pocket in the bottom of her bag. She returned to James to show him what the current Six IDs looked like.

“The passcode will be somewhat simplistic,” she said. “When he comes to the door you’ll ask him if he’s Uriah Heep, and then he will acknowledge and ask if you are the Traveler in Time.”

James smiled.

“Dr. Who fan?” he asked. “Or just a fan of the music.”

“You don’t know?” she asked with an innocent look on her face.

“No, I really don’t,” he admitted.

“Well, I’m relieved I’ve kept one of my secrets from you,” she said.

She smirked at him and finally forced herself to got to bed. She didn’t want to spend anymore time thinking about how, when she woke, it would be the last time she would see James Bond until the next century.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James gets some unexpected good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another James POV chapter.

Olivia woke before her alarm. James heard her dress and go toward the door. She paused, then she was gone. He let her believe he was asleep so it wouldn’t be as difficult for her, he told himself. Five hours later he knew it was only for selfish reasons.

After he’d heard her car engine fade away, he went to the kitchen and looked at the contents of the cupboards. He hadn’t purchased much since he’d assumed they wouldn’t be staying in the house much longer. He’d spent most of the money on the soaps for Olivia. 

He turned away from the cupboards to look at the open bedroom door. 

He shouldn’t, he reasoned with himself. It was not going to be a good idea to go into that room. More like an exercise in masochism.

But when had he ever been reasonable, he thought.

The scent of the gardenia soap was faint, but present. He hesitantly walked toward the en suite. But when he arrived he found he needn’t have worried. She’d taken the soaps with her. 

He smiled at that thought. She’d known what they were for. 

Feeling better about things, he returned to the kitchen and made himself some toast and beans before heading out for some coffee from the cafe down the street.

Five hours later, still waiting for Grey and his team to arrive, James found himself lying on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, and singing “Flowers on the Wall,” to himself. 

He sat up and shook his head as if to clear the song from his mind. He had to think of something beside the fact that he might be stuck here in 1975 and how he could change everyone’s future, his possibly for the better by saving his parents, and Olivia’s possibly for the worse by somehow messing up her future at Six.

Finally, at 2300, there was a knock on the door. The chain was on, and when James opened it he made sure his foot was as wedged against it as possible.

“Uriah Heep?” he asked.

“Yes,” the man answered. “Are you the traveler in time?”

James nodded and James opened the door for him.

As Grey entered, he asked his driver and another man to stay outside in the car, and entered carrying a briefcase. This surprised James, he was under the assumption they’d have a formal questioning and then he’d be taken back to London. What he’d do after that, James had no idea.

They sat at the kitchen table and Grey began.

“I spoke with Olivia,” he said. “She told me your situation.”

James nodded, keeping a neutral face.

“It was bad when this was all just conjecture and threats and posturing,” Grey said, shaking his head. “Now that we know that it will be a reality at some point, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

He looked at James and pursed his lips in thought.

“She told me you are a double-0,” he said.

James nodded.

“She told me you know her in the future from your work at Six,” Grey continued.

James nodded again.

Grey smirked.

“In 2010, Olivia will be far too old to remain in the employ of Six unless she is one of two people,” Grey said, giving James a knowing smile that James did not respond to.

“I know it’s not Q,” Grey said. “She’s brilliant, but not that sort of brilliant.”

He stared at James as if he was waiting for the agent to give something up. But James just continued to give him the same neutral look he’d had since he first let the man into the house.

Finally, Grey seemed satisfied.

“You’re very loyal to her,” he stated, then waited for some sort of acknowledgement, which never came.

“Good,” he nodded. “Very good.”

He picked the case up off the floor and set it on the table. James felt himself tense. He had no weapon to defend himself if Grey decided to do something. He wished he’d asked Olivia for his gun, but he’d trusted her.

“Don’t worry, Bond,” Grey said casually. “I’m not going to kill you.”

He set a large envelope on the table, then he set James’ gun on top of that.

“In fact, I’m actually going to have you work for me,” he said. 

James didn’t hide his surprise at that idea.

“I trust Olivia’s judgement,” Grey said. “She’s the best agent I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been with Six since Korea.”

James waited in silence as he considered what this might mean.

“Look, this whole job is turning into a right mess now that we know the machine will someday work,” he said. “I can’t have more agents brought in and briefed. The less people who know, the better I will feel.”

His words echoed Olivia’s his first night here. And he knew they were both right. He also knew that this was exactly what he wanted. 

“Apparently she told Michel that she stayed with you that night she found you, that the two of you were intimate, and that she was staying with you most days,” Grey explained.

“We weren’t,” James said before Grey could finish speaking.

Grey’s brows went up at that, but he continued without comment.

“She told him you were a rather rich British ex-pat who liked to play horrifying tricks on people,” Grey said. “She really outdid herself on this one, I have to say. Something about you climbing into the rafter and jumping down on them. It was absurd, but Michel seems to have bought it.”

James would be more satisfied with that explanation if he could see Michel and have him assure him that he had indeed ‘bought it.’

“But, it might have put some pressure on Michel to get her to move in with him for the remainder of her stay,” Grey said. “She told me he had been a bit slow about things until you showed up.”

“Really?” James asked, and then he realized he had no idea how long Olivia had been here in Paris or how long she’d been working on Michel. He’d simply had assumed that she had been her only two or three days.

“We’ve been setting this up for over six months,” he said. “It’s a huge business.”

“For a nut job who thinks he’ll alter history with an untested time machine?” he asked.

Grey nodded.

“Well, there’s obviously more to it than that,” he said. “But ‘eyes only.’”

James nodded.

“How long do you want me to stay?” he asked.

“As long as she’s here,” Grey answered. “That is five more nights.”

He closed the briefcase and set it next to him again.

“After that, you’ll follow her back to Brussels and pretend to be interested in furthering the relationship,” he explained.

“Once the case is complete,” he continued. “We’ll figure out what to do with you.”

Grey reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card.

“This is my number,” he said. “But my direct line is written on the back.

“Check in every three days starting from today at 1900 hours Paris time to the number on the front,” he said as he stood. “If anything urgent occurs, call the other number as soon as possible.”

James stood and walked him to the door.

“Thank you, sir,” he said as he shook the man’s hand.

Grey nodded. 

“Just do yourself one very big favor,” he warned James. “Stay the hell out of her way. She will not take kindly to any sort of meddling, especially from a male agent.”

James smiled slightly and nodded. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Olivia’s wrath, and as beautiful as she was when she was angry, he had grown past the need to provoke her intentionally.

Once Grey was gone, James went to the table. He checked his gun and found it fully loaded as it had been when he’d arrived. Then he opened the envelope, inside of which he found another, smaller envelope filled with 2000 francs. There were also two files. One on Michel, the other on Dubois. James read over the files carefully then he put them into a hidden compartment he’d found in the kitchen his first day.

He felt better. He finally felt useful. Even if all he was doing was waiting and acting as window dressing, it was something. 

Two hours after Grey left, James finally felt calm enough to sleep. Without thinking, he went into the bedroom. Olivia had been the agent in charge, so he’d had no problem with sleeping on the sofa for several nights. But he wanted to get some good sleep so he was going to switch to the bed.

He dropped his clothes next to the bed and crawled under the covers. In seconds he was overwhelmed by the scent he’d always associated with Olivia. The good feeling he’d had at being useful again was lost in the sudden onslaught of reality. 

In reality, he’d been supposed to bring in Dubois and had failed. If Ronson, or the back up team, had also failed, then Dubois could have Olivia by now. 

James tried to get his mind to stop thinking about everything that might be going wrong in the time he was supposed to be in, but it was no use. 

He lay in the bed and began to list everything that might be messed up by this turn of events. The biggest one that worried him was what if he had ruined everything for Olivia’s future. What if she never became his M? What would he do? 

Olivia was often the only person who believed in him. He’d realized that after Bolivia. And when George had been killed, it was James she had called on, along with Tanner. Only the two of them had seen her and been allowed to stay with her during that ordeal. He knew then that she trusted him. And that was the only thing he’d wanted since he’d met her.

He usually tried not to think too long on they ‘why’ of his need for her trust. He had trouble quantifying it beyond the knowledge that he was attracted to her. Thinking further on it would lead to mistakes he couldn’t afford to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chorus from "Flowers on the Wall" by The Statler Brothers.
> 
> Countin' flowers on the wall  
> That don't bother me at all  
> Playin' solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one  
> Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo  
> Now don't tell me I've nothin' to do


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia's plan is rolling right along, at least so long as a certain time-traveling 00 stays out of her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little more set up. Afraid there won't be a lot of excitement for a while. Spy work is so boring. :D

In the two days since she’d temporarily moved in with Michel, Olivia had learned to miss the way she and James could be content with silence. Michel needed her constant attention. Even if she was trying to read the paper or a book, he would interrupt her to talk and then more.

She used the excuse of leaving something at the house to get away from Michel today. He was on his way to his club and she promised to join him after she picked it up. In reality, she needed to contact Martin and let him know she would be making contact with Dubois that night.

Of course, she could have contacted Martin from a payphone anywhere in Paris, instead she had opted to visit the cafe down the street from the house. James had recommended it, she’d reasoned.

Thinking of James made Olivia feel a sense of loss. She wondered how he was faring. What had Martin decided to do with him? Olivia assumed he would give James a new identity then hide him away somewhere. Olivia wondered if they would put James’ address into the computer or just keep it in a paper file. It would be easier for her if she could just break into the system to find it. It was a little trick she’d taught herself when Q had started bringing in computers to store data.

Either way, she couldn’t do it until this case was finished. So she tried to shake Bond’s face from her mind and return to reading her book and drinking her coffee.

Ten minutes later, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she registered a familiar figure standing just inside the door of the cafe. She glanced up to see Bond who had a concerned look on his face. He glanced toward the back of the cafe as if to indicate to her to follow him. She wondered what had happened so she hurried after him.

He led her to the back corner of the cafe and glanced around carefully to take stock of the people who were nearby.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Why didn’t you just come to the house?”

“The house?” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to London?”

His look told her he thought she knew and he leaned in as if to take her into an embrace.

“Didn’t Grey tell you?” he asked as his arms went around her.

“I haven’t talked to him since the night I left,” she whispered in his ear.

James’ hand skimmed down the center of her back and Olivia tensed.

“He wanted me to stay to hold your cover story you made for me,” he said. “He thought it would look strange if I headed directly back to London.”

Olivia took a breath and slowly pushed James away.

“What else?” she asked.

James stared at her a moment, then a small smile curved just the corners of his mouth.

“He told me to keep out of your way or there’d be hell to pay,” he said.

That answer satisfied Olivia and she nodded.

“You had better heed that warning,” she said, curtly.

“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” he said. “I know better than to cross you.”

He had a smirk on his face and Olivia averted her eyes when she realized that he was talking about the future.

“Please, don’t,” she said.

He reached for her hand and rubbed the back of her wrist.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

They were silent for a moment and Olivia felt herself relax.

“When do you check in next?” she asked.

“Tomorrow night, 1900 local time,” he told her.

“Let him know I’ll be in contact with Dubois either tonight or tomorrow night,” she said.

He nodded, but didn’t release her hand when she tugged on it.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“What?”

“Why did you come here if you thought I was gone?” he asked again.

She turned an innocent look to him.

“You said they had good coffee,” she told him.

“You told Michel you were going for coffee?” he asked.

“No,” she sighed. “I told him I had left something with you and needed to get it.”

He took her other hand in his now as well.

“Only a few more days,” he said. “I doubt Michel will follow you back to Brussels.”

“I do hope Dubois will,” she replied.

“If he has half a brain he will,” James smirked.

The mention of Brussels piqued her curiosity.

“I suppose Grey wants you to follow me there?” she asked.

“Just for cover,” he said. “I’m supposed to be a love-sick idiot.”

She felt herself smile involuntarily and his stupid grin that made him look, indeed, like a love-sick idiot.

“Well, don’t over do it,” she said.

He released her hands and she turned slowly to leave. She chalked her reluctance up to feeling responsible for James.

* * *

The first time Martin had seen her in action, he’d spit out his beer across the table. He’d told her later that he barely recognized her because she’d gone from being a fierce and intelligent woman to being demure and docile and giggling far too much. When the act became too much for her, she liked to think of that moment. It reminded her that she was still the same person inside, that Olivia hadn’t vanished when the other persona came out.

Tonight was definitely one of those nights. Acting the silly, girlish tourist gushing all over Michel was becoming a little much. Whenever he took her hand into his cold, clammy one, or brushed his cold lips against her ear, her mind tortured her with the memory of her earlier run-in with Bond. This only left her confused over what exactly she felt for him, and why she felt anything so quickly. It was a distraction, and she couldn’t afford distractions.

Fortunately, a bigger distraction finally showed itself as Olivia watched Dubois enter the club.

“Oh, that’s him, isn’t it?” she asked in her girlish voice.

“Yes,” Michel said, giving her a sideways glance that she knew meant he was jealous of her attention of the man.

“Oh, he is so handsome,” she said. “You didn’t tell me he was so handsome.”

She smiled up at him and pretended ignorance of the look he was giving her.

“Introduce me to him,” she said eagerly.

Michel no longer looked happy to have her meet his buyer.

The introduction was made and Olivia took Dubois to the booth Michel had indicated earlier for them to talk. Olivia sat between the two men but she mostly just looked at Dubois.

The plan, as she’d thought it out, was that she was a young, working woman looking for a rich man. Dubois had shown a propensity for women who hung on his every word as if he was spewing magic. He had a huge ego and didn’t seem to understand that there might be anyone playing him. He thought he was too smart.

As she began to talk to him, she realized her assessment was spot-on. Not that it surprised her, but she was always cautious.

“So the company you work for sells gold fittings?” Dubois asked, as Michel fumed silently across the table from him.

“Yes,” she said. “For all those rich folks who want gold door hinges and gold nails. We even have these itty-bitty teeny screws.”

She scrunched her face up ridiculously and indicated a small size with her fingers. Dubois seemed to be impressed in the business and more so in her.

“Michel says you want to buy some,” she said. “So you must be very rich.”

She put her hand on his chest and he smiled down at it.

“Yes, mademoiselle, I am very rich indeed,” he said as he looked back up at her with a leer.

She giggled appropriately and pretended to blush.

Michel tried to break in with business discussion, but Olivia knew she had her mark firmly in her grasp. It was at this point she always had to remind herself not to get overconfident. She’d been successful many times and it would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking it was nearly wrapped up.

In the end, she left that night with Dubois and told Michel she’d send for her things.

* * *

Later that night she slipped out of Dubois’ bed and washed off quickly in the shower. She had put the shampoo James had bought her into her clutch just in case she had ended up in this exact situation. After she bathed, she snuck into Dubois’ study. She didn’t do a search. It was too soon. She just wanted the lay of the room and to test Dubois’ sleep.

There were books in shelves along the two side walls between the door and the window to the garden. She read the titles quickly to see if she could find one that had pictures of some sort.

She found what she wanted in The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, by Darwin, and took it to the chair by the window to pretend to read in case Dubois did wake up.

Olivia didn’t lose herself entirely in her thoughts, but she eased back into the chair and breathed the scent of the gardenia perfumed shampoo that she’d used in place of the soap in Dubois’ shower.

What was it about James? She wondered. It wasn’t love. She’d been in love before. This was something she had never felt. The way he was with her was different than anyone she’d known.

With other male agents, she always had her guard up. Though she had proved her worth and intelligent a hundred times over, it was never enough for them. Even the two times she’d met M, on Martin’s recommendation, he’d been condescending and reluctant to acknowledge that she’d ever be more than just a female agent, hired only because she could get men into bed with her.

Martin was always quick to remind her that M was of the old guard and that one day there would be someone else at the helm, someone else with the title “M.” And when he said it, he would look at her in a meaningful way, as if he meant her. She would always laugh at him.

Now the joke, it seemed, was on her. James had confirmed it.

She suddenly made the connection between her future title and James’ current respect. One day she would be his boss. Perhaps he was respectful to her because of their relationship at work.

Finally, she decided that she’d run this little test long enough without Dubois’ notice. She could search things tomorrow night. Putting Darwin back on the shelf, she crept back into Dubois’ bed.

He hadn’t moved much since she left. Laying stiffly on his back, a slight snore emitted from his mouth. Olivia got under the covers and he didn’t notice at all. She curled up on her side, turned away from him. Then raised her hand to lay under her cheek, and to smell the gardenia scent as she forced herself to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia's patience begins to pay off as she makes a discovery she was not expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, this chapter. Um, meh. I don't know. I mean, it does what I wanted it to do, but I think I wanted to do it more thoroughly. But it's been a really bad day so I'm just glad I got it out.

The decision not to search Dubois’ study the first night turned out not to be the mistake people often told her it was. Of course, those were the brash, in-a-hurry, young men who thought they could teach her things, when she had been at this business for far longer than they.

With Dubois, she needed to establish something long-term. While not fully deep cover, it was very close. And in the morning, Dubois basically gave the house away to her without her even asking.

“Would you like to see my laboratory?” he asked at breakfast.

“Is it here?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s in the east wing of the house,” he said.

That was no surprise to Olivia. She had reviewed the plans to his estate and the house until she could find her way in the dark though this was only her first day here.

“Oh, that sounds wonderful,” she gushed.

He seemed very pleased with himself for it and Olivia hoped she could get him to do more than show her the general workings. He was just enough of a braggart, she’d thought when she’d first read through his file, that he might be willing to tell someone like her everything in order to impress her even further.

People like Dubois needed to not only be fawned over for their money, they also liked have people tell them how intelligent they were. In Dubois’ case, he did have a physics degree. But his personality would have required this sort of attention even if he’d only been a garbage collector.

So, with this need to show off and impress her, Dubois took her into his lab and Olivia found herself inundated with information.

“But what’s it all for?” she asked with a confused act.

“I plan,” he said. “To travel through time.”

Olivia gave him a flabbergasted look and he smiled proudly down at her as if he knew she couldn’t help but me impressed with him.

“Oh,” she said, hesitantly. “You want to see the future?”

He shook his head.

“I plan to go into the past,” he told her.

“But where’s the fun in that?” she asked. “We already know what happens in the past. The future would be new and exciting.”

“Ah, but I plan to do more than visit,” he said. “I am going to change the future.”

She paused and gave the look like she was giving that some thought.

“But if you change the future, what if you end up not being born?” she asked.

He reached over and patted her head and smiled at her as if she were an amusing child.

“I will show you, one day, my dear,” he said.

Olivia smiled up at him as if that was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard.

* * *

That night, Olivia did as thorough a search of the study as she dared, but didn’t turn up anything noteworthy. She decided she’d push her luck a little and took the copy of Darwin off the shelf again and sat in the chair by the window to fall asleep.

Dubois found her in the morning. He looked slightly worried, but Olivia put an end to that with her act.

“I’m used to staying up all night at the clubs,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep so I just came in here to read.”

She made a show of stretching and yawning.

“Books like these always put me to sleep,” she said, handing him back the Darwin.

He smiled condescendingly at her.

“Well, it’s morning now, my dear,” he said. “Why don’t you sleep in the bed? I have to get ready for a business guest.”

“A guest?” she asked. “Will we have a little party?”

He smiled and shook his head as they stopped in front of the bedroom door.

“No, just boring business,” he said. “As boring as those books in my library.”

Olivia stuck out her lip in a small pout.

“What am I supposed to do while he’s here?” she asked with just the right amount of whining in her voice.

“You, my dear,” he said, cupping her cheek. “Will look pretty.”

She laughed.

“I can manage that,” she said.

Then she kissed him deeply before heading into the bedroom.

She did sleep some. She had been up for nearly 20 hours by the time she’d fallen asleep in the chair. Dubois woke her before lunch to get ready for his visitor.

When the man arrived, Dubois had her wait with him on the drive as he drove up. And when the man stepped out of the car and Olivia immediately recognized him as a high ranking member of, what MI6 assumed nearly defunct, SMERSH, Olivia hid her surprise with a giggle and a blush.

They went through the house to the terrace along the back where lunch was awaiting them. Olivia ate as the men spoke Russian to each other. While Maxim Orlov eyed her with veiled suspicion, Olivia did her best to look as bored as possible.

When there was a break in the conversation as the maid brought tea and dessert, Olivia broke in and asked Orlov if he spoke French.

“My French is not good,” he said, with a heavy Russian accent.

Olivia knew that was a complete lie. She’d heard him on tape sounding like he’d grown up in the finest homes in Paris. She, of course, could speak and understand Russian perfectly herself. But, she sighed dejectedly and tried to get some pity from Dubois.

“There are some nice fashion magazines in the Conservatory,” he told her. “Why don’t you bring out a few to look at while we are talking?”

She dutifully hurried to the Conservatory and found the magazines on a table, then returned to the terrace.

Dubois and Orlov stood and Dubois did not look particularly happy.

“Maxim and I are going to continue our conversation in the lab,” he said.

Olivia was certain that Dubois was upset because he couldn’t show off his little “trophy” to Maxim as they were talking.

“You can stay here,” he continued.

Olivia made a show of being relieved and returned to her seat and promptly began reading.

* * *

Orlov stayed another three hours, but the two men did not return to her nor discuss anything important in front of her except for Dubois telling Orlov he looked forward to meeting his boss in a fortnight.

Though Dubois had spoken in Russian, Orlov cast a furtive glance toward Olivia, who was still looking as bored as she could manage considering how much information she had uncovered in less than 24 hours here.

* * *

The next morning, Dubois tried to persuade her to stay, but she insisted she return to work. She invited him to come visit and told him she could arrange for a tour of their factory and to discuss arrangement for purchases directly with the head of the company.

Dubois was extremely pleased with that.

Olivia got into her car, which had been returned to her with the other items she’d had at Michel’s on the first day she’d been at the residence. Driving away, she turned onto the road and headed northeast to Belgium.

She stopped at a petrol station 50 km away and pulled a small box from the same hidden pocket her ID was in. She pressed a button and waved the box around the car discreetly. Satisfied at its silence, she pulled out a recorder and, after she filled her tank and turned back onto the road, attempted to relay everything she had heard since she’d met Dubois three nights earlier.

She was finishing as she neared the border with Belgium. She pulled her false identification out and handed it to the guard. There was no problem, and she continued on her way.

When she arrived at the flat she’d been staying in since taking on this persona five months earlier, Olivia again took out the small box and wandered around the rooms. She wasn’t expecting to find anything here, but she never wanted to let her guard down.

She began to unpack and when she pulled out the soaps James had bought her, she wondered how he was faring. And a small voice in the back of her mind wondered if she would see him anytime soon.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia finds herself surprised at how her future self betrays her secrets to her agent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, I hope this is OK. Another really bad day here so I was almost not even going to write. Yeah, you know it's bad when I want to put off writing. :/
> 
> Anyway, just a heads up, we are leaving to go camping so it is possible I won't post until we return.

The first thing Olivia and the agents at the office did when she showed up in the morning was to plan when to have Dubois arrive. If he was meeting with SMERSH’s leader in two weeks, it didn’t have to be a rush. Jonathan, the senior agent who was acting as the manager of the company, sent a telegram to Dubois letting him know he could arrive anytime starting three days from then. That would put Dubois in Brussels by Thursday and give their people back in Paris time to plan a more thorough and more discreet search of Dubois’ home and lab.

On Tuesday, Olivia found a note from James in her evening mail when she picked it up off the floor after arriving home from her fake office job. He wanted to meet with her that night. The address and time were on the card.

Olivia knew SMERSH had put a tail on her. She’d seen him that morning on the way to work. There was no other way to contact James except through Martin and she couldn’t risk it. Instead, she carefully disguised herself as a young man, and snuck out the back of her building.

She took one bus to the end of the line, then walked several blocks before calling for a cab from a payphone. She had the cab drop her several blocks from the address James had given her, then she took a chaotic route toward the building.

Satisfied there was no one about when she arrived, she knocked on the back door as James had indicated in the message.

When he opened the door, Olivia had planned to have a smile for him, but she could smell gunpowder and knew immediately what the building was used for.

“Why are we here at an indoor shooting range?” she asked after hurrying inside.

“I had Martin pull some strings,” he told her.

“Whatever for?” she asked.

She would never forgive Martin if he’d told James she couldn’t shoot.

“A while back, you, or rather, the older you, shared with me that you’d always been a lousy shot,” he said.

“I told you?”

She was surprised. She never told anyone.

“There was context to it,” he said. “But I’d rather not say.”

He was ushering her to the shooting area as they spoke and Olivia felt the tension slowly rising.

Everything was laid out on the counter in the stall. A gun, two sets of noise silencers, and two goggles. Olivia put on a good show by pulling on the goggles over her eyes then reaching for the noise silencers. But James put his hand on hers before she could cover her ears with them.

“Martin told me SMERSH is involved now,” he said.

Olivia was silent as she waited for his explanation.

“He has me keeping an eye on you,” James told her. “Apparently stalking is a socially acceptable form of love in 1975.”

“It isn’t in 2010?” she asked.

James shook his head.

“It’s actually rather illegal,” he informed her.

“Really?” she smiled. “Well, something else to look forward to. Maybe I’ll just have you take me with you when you go back.”

Olivia caught a look of longing in his eyes, then he blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes he was all business.

“I just want to see what you can do so I don’t have to step in unless absolutely needed,” he said.

Olivia nodded and went to pull the ear covers on.

“Just three shots,” he said. “I should be able to get a good picture with that.”

“Three?” she asked.

He nodded.

Olivia took a deep breath and picked up the gun. She fired the shots. One, two, breathe, three.

James pushed the button that operated the pulley system to bring the paper “man” toward them.

“Well, you did skim him on the side right here,” James smirked.

Olivia glared at him.

“Hey, I’m trying to be encouraging and pointing out the positive,” he said. “It’s what we do in 2010.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“MI6?” she asked disbelieving.

“Well, for the most part,” he said. “At least more than is probable in 1975.”

He set that paper aside and put up a new one, then pushed the button to return it to position.

“Alright,” he said. “Now we’re going to try something.”

He moved to stand behind her.

“Your stance is good,” he said. “But you’re far too tense in your upper body.”

Olivia reached for the gun, but James stopped her.

“I want you to close your eyes,” he said. “I’ll put your hand on the gun when your ready.”

“How am I to shoot with my eyes shut?” she retorted.

“Trust me,” he said softly, leaning close to her ear.

Olivia tensed, then forced herself to relax and nodded to him.

“Alright, just keep your eyes closed and take slow deep breaths and try to relax your body,” he said quietly.

She did this for several minutes before he spoke again.

“Good,” he said. “Now I am going to take your hand and place it on the gun.”

She tensed slightly.

“Keep breathing,” he said, then slowly moved her hand until her palm was on the butt of the gun.

“Alright,” he said. “I want you to only notice that your hand is touching metal. At first, don’t think about what it is, think about what it’s made of.”

Olivia had no idea how that would help, but she decided to play along to see if there was anything to this.

“Now, tell me about the parts,” he said. “But don’t use the technical words for them. Use words like “metal piece” and “screw” and that sort of thing.”

Olivia had to think it through as she explained how the pieces of the gun were put together. It took her longer than it would have to use the real words.

“Good,” he said. “Now I’m going to put your finger onto the trigger.”

He did so and Olivia’s breath hitched. She was angry with herself, mostly because she had no idea how James was affecting her like this.

“Breathe,” he reminded her.

“Now, I’m going to describe how the weapon works,” he said, then proceeded to give a long, boring, very detailed description of what happened from the moment one pressed against the trigger.

When he finished he brought her other hand up and had her hold the gun in both hands as if she was going to shoot. This brought him very close against her. Olivia felt herself growing warm, whether it was from his closeness or her discomfort she wasn’t sure.

“Are you trying to seduce me, Bond?” she asked and turned her head to look up at him.

He was much taller than her, not an uncommon problem for Olivia, but he leaned down just enough so Olivia didn’t have to strain her neck as much.

“If I was going to seduce you, Olivia,” he said with a rough and needy voice. “I would take you to a fine restaurant where we’d have lobster and wine, then we’d go back to my place and become intimately acquainted with Ravel.

“I sure as hell wouldn’t bring you to a dive like this.”

His smoky look changed to a cool smirk and he cocked an eyebrow.

“Now, if you are quite done flirting with me, we’ll get back to business,” he said.

Olivia rolled her eyes and gave him a soft elbow in the ribs.

James turned her back to the paper across the room from her and waited for her to relax some.

“Close your eyes again until I tell you to open them,” he said.

She did so, and waited again.

“Feel the weight of the gun in your hands,” he said. “And think through what we’ve just said.”

Another moment went by.

“This is just a tool,” he continued. “It’s not your enemy, but it’s not your friend. It’s another tool to go along with all the others you have.”

This time, Olivia deliberately took her slow breaths. After several, James told her to open her eyes.

“When I put the cover on your ear again, then aim and shoot three times,” he said.

Olivia followed his instructions. One, two, breathe, three.

As soon as she finished, she set the gun down and closed her eyes.

James seemed to ignore or not notice her tension as he pushed the button to bring the paper back toward them.

“Very good,” he said.

Olivia opened her eyes. One shot had gone through the right shoulder, another through the neck, and one seemed to have grazed the side of “his” head.

Olivia sighed in disgust. It hadn’t worked at all.

“You got him in his right shoulder,” James commented. “That’s good, since most people are right handed. It might disable him, making it more difficult for him to fire his gun.”

He pointed at the shot in the neck.

“This one probably hit the carotid artery, or, well, it’s the neck, so there are a number of beneficial things it could hit that would be good for you.”

“I was aiming for the chest,” she snapped at him.

James put the paper down and turned to her, giving her a patient look, which only made Olivia more angry. She didn’t want to be patronized.

“I don’t think you want to kill anyone,” he said.

Olivia gritted her teeth and closed her hands into tight fists. She was about to lay into him when he took both her hands in his.

“Hear me out,” he said. “I’m not chastising you, I’m trying to get you to see what I see.”

Olivia tapped her foot impatiently and waited for him to speak.

“When you shoot just three shots, you breathe before the third,” he said. “I think you are remembering that night, whether you realize it or not.”

If James hadn’t had a firm grasp on her hands, Olivia would have hit him so hard she’d have drawn blood.

“Just listen,” he said. “It’s not a bad thing. Not wanting to kill someone is not a bad thing. I know this is part of the reason you’ve been kept from attaining a promotion to Double-0, but it is also what will make you better as you go on.”

She was still threatening him with her glare, but James didn’t seem phased in the slightest.

“It’s not bad to remember that night,” he continued. “It doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t hinder your work. It doesn’t really control you.”

James began to rub the backs of her hands with his thumbs in an attempt to get her to relax again. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

“It’s alright to remember,” he said. “It’s alright to be angry still. It’s alright to miss them.”

Olivia closed her eyes as she felt her anger shift to something closer to grief. Why was he doing this to her?

“It’s alright to think about them,” he said in an even softer voice. “It’s alright to wonder how things would have been different.”

When she felt a tear roll down her cheek, she wanted to turn away from him and hide her shame. But he continued to talk quietly to her and rub her hands until, oddly, she felt herself begin to relax.

Finally, she opened her eyes and looked down at their joined hands.

“I miss them,” she admitted in a whisper.

“I know,” he said.

She looked up at him. In his eyes she saw his own decision regarding his parents. Without thinking, she reached up and brushed the back of her fingers against his cheek. James gave her a sad smile in return.

Then he did something unexpected and pulled her into his arms. His embrace was gentle, but secure. She could have pushed away if she wanted, but she didn’t find she had the desire to do so. His body was tense, though, as hers had just been and she held him until she felt him relax.

“How did you know?” she asked as they slowly pulled away from each other.

“It was an educated guess,” he said.

She gave him a sad smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

He only nodded and turned to clean up as she made her way out the back of the building.

As she got closer to her flat, she hoped she’d sneak back in as easily as she’d snuck out.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little bit of filler. James' thoughts as he and Olivia go to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, all, just did a little bit of writing tonight, just because. Mostly just hiking around otherwise. But I wasn't as tired today as yesterday. Also, the clouds came in so no stargazing and we didn't bring cards to play a game. :D

James watched out the window of his flat as Olivia sat at a table in front of a cafe that was situated between her flat and his

Martin had set James up in a flat two blocks down from Olivia’s. It was close, but not so close James couldn’t avoid her if he really was the creepy stalker he was supposed to be. He was almost certain Olivia had already figured that out.

Shaking his head, James finally left the window.

This couldn’t end well. That much he was certain. How could it? He’d taught her to shoot? Sure, she wasn’t great at it. But that was just because now she needed more practice. And she’d plainly told him not that long ago, at least to him, that she was a terrible shot and that was why she’d never been made a double-0.

James knew he shouldn’t interfere, but when Martin had told him of the visit from some high level member of SMERSH to Dubois’ estate, James couldn’t help himself. From experience, he knew where this was likely headed and Olivia would be more deeply embedded with Dubois.

Right now, James was just pissed at Six for their lack of foresight. How could they not have foreseen the need for a specially trained female double-0 agent? He honestly had never thought about it before his current situation. It wasn’t that he didn’t know there was a time without them, it’s just he never considered the effect that lack would have on the agency’s ability to do its job.

Martin had assured him that if Six had known that it was more than just a potential for hostile activity, they would have handled it differently. But when James had suggested the possibility of pulling Olivia off the case and replacing her, Martin’s comment him shut him up immediately.

_“I told you, Olivia is a good agent, the best,” Martin said. “She can handle this. And, for your sake, I will never mention this conversation to her.”_

And so, James had taken it upon himself, with a little help from Martin, to help Olivia with her shooting. Martin didn’t ask what or how, and he hadn’t contacted James to ask how it had gone either.

Now it was a waiting game.

Dubois was due today. Six had confirmed he’d left Paris that morning and was being driven into Belgium. By the time Olivia made it to the office, he should be nearly there. After that, James was sure Olivia would be moving into whatever hotel Dubois was in, and after that, she’d be leaving Brussels completely to live with Dubois full-time.

James took a slow breath and forced himself not to think how jealous that made him. Though, why it would, he didn’t know. She didn’t love Dubois. Hell, she hadn’t even given the man one bit of information about herself. He was a mark. James had seduced marks before and it had never meant anything to him. He knew this meant nothing to her.

But this train of thought, and that of how much he was probably screwing this all up, were a waste of time and energy.

He got into the shower to get ready to go into Olivia’s office later and confront her in front of Dubois. He smiled at the thought that he was going to really work with her. This was something he’d been fantasizing about since she had told him that she was an agent eight months earlier.

James pulled out the best suit he’d been given and tried not to laugh at the collar and the wide legs.

“You look like something out of “Saturday Night Fever,”” he told his reflection.

Then he straightened his tie, headed out onto the street, and hailed a cab, all serious and all business. He had a job to do now, and he planned to do it right. James had spent his entire career as a double-0 doing nothing but trying to impress Olivia. It wouldn’t do to fail her now.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia makes a few startling discoveries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter kinda got long so I ended it because my wp says it's six pages. :) I should be able to post daily now until school starts up on Monday and finish the story.

Olivia’s surprise was real when James walked into the office shortly after Dubois. She hadn’t expected to see him so soon. Though she hadn’t discussed exactly when he was going to try to play his part of the obsessed lover.

He spoke in broken, school-boy French.

“Leonore, my love,” he said. “Why don’t you return my calls? I left you a note at your flat, but you haven’t responded.”

“James, I told you when I left in Paris that it was fun for a while, but that’s all it was,” she replied.

James shook his head and gave her a pleading look.

“No, there was so much more,” he said.

He took a step toward her and Dubois moved between them quickly.

“Sir, the lady has said she does not wish to see you,” he told James.

James gave Dubois an angry look before turning on his heels and going back out the front door.

Olivia was pleased James hadn’t overplayed it. They would roll this out slowly so that his “stalking” would seem a normal outcome.

She pretended to be a little shaken at the minor confrontation. With SMERSH now known to be involved it would be far better to play the fainthearted damsel in distress than to seem even remotely capable. Orlov was bound to be checking into both of their stories and they already had a tail on her. Now they’d have one on James.

* * *

Dubois sent a car for her in the evening. Six had his hotel information, but she didn’t think James would show up again for at least a few days.

“I should go home,” she said as she slid out of Dubois’ bed later that night.

“Why?”

“Well, you didn’t give me a chance to even pack any clothes,” she said. “I still have to go to work in the morning.”

Dubois reluctantly called a car for her but seemed satisfied when she told him she would stay with him for the rest of his trip. She hoped that the weekend would produce another meeting with Orlov or another member of SMERSH. Here, in the city, Six would be watching any public interaction.

Olivia didn’t dare leave any sort of bug herself in the hotel room. That would be asking for SMERSH to watch her more closely. If she could get them to meet in the dining room the next night or so, Six would be able to set something up to record them.

She didn’t see James the next morning as she had her coffee, but she could swear she felt him watching her. He was somewhere in the neighborhood, that was all she knew for certain. When she had returned to her flat the night before, she had washed in a hot shower using the soap he had bought her. The whole flat was beginning to smell like it and she rather liked it. Normally, this sort of thing would bother her. She didn’t accept gifts from men because there were always strings attached. But with James it didn’t seem that there were.

* * *

On Saturday, she was able to get a message out to Six that SMERSH would be meeting with Dubois that night in his suite. As long as none of them suspected the kitchen when they sent up the food, Six would be able to record the conversation to back up whatever Olivia might hear, if they even allowed her to remain in the room.

In the end, the bug from room service was considered too risky. SMERSH was extremely paranoid for some reason and it turned out to be a good decision. They scanned the plates as soon as they arrived. Olivia gave them an incredulous look as they did so, then she giggled for good measure.

* * *

Dubois stayed a week, and as time wore on, Olivia realized that she was going to be at this for much longer than she’d hoped. It had taken nearly six months to set up her identity and it looked like it was going to be another six months at least, unless SMERSH made a sudden and unexpected move.

Dubois asked her to return to Paris with him, so, to keep the appearance of being a flighty and impulsive, money-seeking woman, Olivia called into the office from the car phone on the way to the border. She didn’t worry about James knowing to follow her. She had a feeling he’d anticipated this very thing and was not far behind.

* * *

Quite honestly, there had been times over the previous two years of undercover work that Olivia had considered that desk job Martin kept hinting at. He wanted her to learn more than just the work of an agent. He wanted her to know the ins and outs of Six. He saw great potential in her and wanted to get her into a Station somewhere. Now, another month of life on Dubois’ estate outside Paris, that desk was sounding better than it ever had.

Olivia wondered if it wasn’t due to the revelation that James had brought her. If she truly was going to be M one day, and she knew Martin wanted her to take that path, then she should consider getting out of the field.

She was 35 now. She had been doing field work for a decade. It no longer held any sort of excitement for her. LIke any other job, she presumed, this one had become just as much a drudgery as any one had been at for a long while. Still, she had been loathe to give it up. Men were able to go on as double-0s until they were 45. James was approaching that, she knew. He was still active in the field. She didn’t know if it would make her look weak to bow out now.

For now, however, it was just a matter of waiting, and tolerating Dubois. Though that was getting slightly better. He had started to work in earnest in his laboratory now that he had a sponsor in SMERSH and was able to get access to everything he needed. This meant he was less interested in her in bed. She was now mostly just a showpiece when he went out or when he had guests.

He was also very distracted and didn’t notice when she went out only that she had to be back by dinner and she had to spend the night. If it weren’t for SMERSH watching her whenever she went into the city, this would have been the easiest part of the job so far.

In the city, she was able to discreetly leave messages for James to convey to Martin. And she could pick up any he left for her. They had several drop off points throughout the city, and, of course, James was supposed to be seeking her out. So they were able to use that to meet often enough to be useful for Olivia, and often enough that it really did look like he was stalking her. She imagined that the man SMERSH had sent to follow James was rather bored of watching him watch her.

The tails were really the only stimulation. She knew James was slipping out to leave her messages so their respective followers wouldn’t make any sort of connection. And, so far, SMERSH still seemed to be unaware.

If she had been new at this, she would have let her guard down. She would have been expecting it to stay this way for longer. But she knew the situation well enough to know that, now that SMERSH was active this time of relative neutrality would be short-lived.

A month after she had returned to Paris with Dubois,she came back to the manor to find a grey Rolls Royce parked in front. It wasn’t the same one Orlov used, but the look of the driver who was standing next to the car told her it was definitely SMERSH.

“Ah, darling, there you are,” Dubois greeted her warmly.

She dutifully responded and waited for him to introduce her to the man she knew to be Alexei Chugunkin, who had at one time been the main muscle behind the head of SMERSH. She had thought he’d died at the hands of the KGB, as many of the leaders had over the last 20 years.

“This is my new associate, Alexei,” Dubois said.

He was somewhat hesitant in his speech and Olivia realized Alexei made Dubois as nervous as he was rumored to make most people.

Olivia offered her hand in greeting and asked him if he spoke French. She knew he did but hoped he’d claim he didn’t as Orlov had. Orlov had become more relaxed around Olivia and had started to have conversations with Dubois without forcing her to leave the room.

“Yes,” he said. “I speak French very well.”

Olivia acted relieved.

“Oh, good, it is so difficult because I’m afraid languages were not my specialty in school,” she said with a girlish smile, and followed it up with a giggle.

Alexei looked at her as if he thought that no subject could have been her specialty at school, and that relieved her as well. If he wasn’t as suspicious as Orlov had been at the beginning she would be able to get more information about what SMERSH wanted with a time machine.

* * *

Alexei was a little too open in Olivia’s opinion. It was almost as if he was feeding her information he wanted her to send back to Six. She took to excusing herself occasionally, then returning, claiming that she found the talk of science and politics dull. It took her another two weeks before Alexei seemed to stop testing her with his information, all of which was probably useless but if she had reported it to Six and it had been acted upon, she would have been discovered.

As the weeks went by, both Alexei and Orlov began to make more visits and stay for a longer time. In that time, Dubois went from being excited about and distracted by his work, to being tense and easily agitated. Olivia wasn’t sure what their private conversations had included, but she had found him one day in the lab working on what she knew was some type of bomb.

She tried to engage Dubois in conversation about it, but the only thing she could get out of him was that it wasn’t his machine but something he had to do for his associates to get what he needed from them. Then he forced her from his lab.

It was all unusual behavior for him. He must have realized too late that he’d made a deal with the devil. Olivia hoped he kept it together or the payment due could be her life or his if he didn’t.

Olivia spent time searching Dubois’ study and his laboratory when she could, trying to find the target of the bomb. She knew Martin was quietly looking into the reemergence of SMERSH, and, after her last message she’d left with James when he’d “bumped into her” at a club one night, Martin would now be trying to find a potential bombing site.

Finally, one late night search of the lab turned up two important discoveries. The first was of a location. The new Chancellery building in Bonn, West Germany. Olivia knew it was due to open sometime in the middle of 1976, and a disruption of this magnitude would certainly be something SMERSH would be interested in. She wished she had some knowledge of whom SMERSH was working with now. It seemed likely they were partnering with the Stasi if this was their target.

The second discovery was even more critical. The core of the bomb appeared to be made up of plutonium. She wasn’t sure the amount, but hooked up to the rest of the bomb it looked to have the potential to take out the Chancellery and a bit of the surrounding city.

She returned to the study and quickly wrote a note. She couldn’t get it directly to Bond because Dubois wanted her to be at the manor when the detail from SMERSH came the next day. Now that she’d seen the bomb was nearly complete, she knew SMERSH would probably take her and Dubois to West Germany with them.

Olivia carefully made her way back to the bedroom where Dubois was thankfully still snoring. She wondered how he could sleep knowing what was about to happen but was glad he had no trouble. It made her job easier. She stashed the note in her purse then carefully crawled back into the bed.

The next morning, after Dubois left her to return to the lab presumably to finish the bomb before the SMERSH contingency arrived, Olivia dressed to take a walk out on the grounds. This was her usual routine. Dubois’ inattention had been a good excuse to explore the grounds of his estate and he hadn’t seen anything unusual about it. Alexei and Orlov seemed to pay it no attention either, once they seemed satisfied she was who she claimed.

This morning, as most, she had a specific destination in mind. Still, she walked slowly through the garden out toward the back of the property where the forest encroached on the land. There was a group of trees that an access road ran through. Here, she and James had set up a makeshift drop box, inside a hole in a tree that had been dug out by squirrels or some other animal. If Olivia could not get into the city, which often happened when Orlov or others from SMERSH were visiting, she would leave messages for James here.

She pulled the note from her pocket when she arrived and reached inside the tree to leave it, but her hand felt a box inside. She pulled it out and smiled when she could already smell what the contents were. Opening it, she discovered a bar of the gardenia scented soap. A warmth infused her that she’d rarely known as she held the wrapped bar up to her nose and breathed deeply.

Upon her return to the house, she found Dubois pacing in the foyer.

“I thought your friends were not going to be here until this evening,” she said.

“They aren’t my friends,” he growled.

Then he stalked off down the hall and went into his study.

Olivia wasn’t sure how she felt about being alone for the rest of the afternoon. Her mind was focused on James and what a mere bar of soap had done to her. What was it about him that made her react differently than she ever had before? Was it just that he knew her in the future? Did the fact that she lived that long bring her some comfort?

James, or more specifically, her undefined feeling for James, was a distraction. Tonight it was possible that she would be taken over into Germany, probably to ensure that Dubois would actually follow through. The alternative at the moment was something she couldn’t focus on. If James said she had lived to be 70, she wouldn’t worry about the other possibilities.

Of course, if James’ appearance here had changed the timeline somehow, then everything that was about to happen could be anyone’s guess.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've seen fire and I've seen rain  
> I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end  
> I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend  
> But I always thought that I'd see you again." James Taylor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to finish up the rest of what would have been in the last chapter. So this is a little short. Enjoy. Just kidding. You won't.

All things that start out easy become difficult. At least that should be her life motto, Olivia thought as she was rushed through the French countryside toward the West German border in the back of Dubois’ limousine.

This really should have just been a matter of determining how deeply Dubois had gotten himself in with anti-Western forces. But, she supposed, SMERSH was as deep as one could get and once a clandestine, former state police organization was involved, it was going to get messy.

Orlov and Alexei had arrived, along with several other men, at five in the evening. It was the presence of the several other men that had confirmed Olivia’s earlier summation that she would be forced to go along. The men had taken to the grounds under a glare from Dubois, and the four of them moved to the dining room for dinner.

They were barely done with their soup when there was a commotion in the front of the house. Olivia could hear James’ voice before she entered the foyer.

“We found this man out in the forest,” one of the guards said in Russian.

Dubois tsked them.

“This is just Leonore’s ex-boyfriend,” he said, shaking his head. “He is always pulling stunts like this to get her attention.”

If Olivia could have a modicum of respect for the man, she would have loved him for his comment. She was certain not one of the SMERSH men present believed that for a second.

“Leonore, it is so good to see you,” he said, still using his broken French. “You can tell your guards I don’t mean to harm anyone.”

Olivia almost felt sorry for him herself. He truly looked the part of a poor sap of a dumped boyfriend. 

“Stop this,” she said. “He is not a thief.”

She moved to go closer to him but another guard moved to stand between them. Olivia pushed at him weakly but he didn’t budge.

“Really, Alexei,” Dubois entoned. “This is too much. Let the poor man go. He only wants to see Leonore. This is nothing unusual at all.”

Orlov mumbled to Alexei in Russian and explained how they had been following James since he had showed up at her job in Brussels but that the tail had been pulled off of him a few weeks earlier when it was deemed he wasn’t a threat.

Alexei looked at James while Orlov spoke, likely to assess if he understood what was being said. James kept his terrified, yet needy, look focused on Olivia, but they both understood the two men completely.

Alexei finally nodded to Orlov, then walked over to James. He put a hand on James’ shoulder and attempted a smile, which actually made him look even more intimidating.

“Ah, love is a powerful emotion, is it not?” he said.

Olivia knew that James was not fooled by this stance. This was serious for him, and Olivia knew there was no way just the two of them could take on this entire group. James could possibly have an even better skillset than the double-0s she knew, but it wouldn’t be enough.

“But, really, if the beautiful Leonore wanted to see you, I do believe she would seek you out herself, no?” 

James made a show of giving the two men with assault rifles a terrified look and Alexei chuckled.

“Now, there are a lot of pretty girls in the world,” he told James. “You would do better to find one of those to play with.”

He nodded to the two guards and the shoved James toward the door.

“I love you, Leonore,” he yelled as they dragged him from the house.

For once, Olivia was glad for the weak persona of her character. It gave her the opportunity to show some real emotion that otherwise she wouldn’t. Her worry over what they were going to do to James hopefully appeared to be sad resolution and maybe some pity toward a man so infatuated with her.

But when Orlov followed them out to the car they were putting James into, Olivia had to hide her fear. They weren’t merely going to take him home or drop him off down the road. 

“This is ridiculous,” she turned and yelled at Alexei. “Just let him walk home if that’s how he got here. Why are you all so damed paranoid?”

She hurried up the stairs to the bedroom where she could watch the car as it drove out to the main road. It was dark now and the only thing she could see well were the lights of the car, though she had kept the room light off to get a better view. It stopped suddenly, about halfway out the drive. Olivia couldn’t see or hear anything. She didn’t dare open the window and possibly draw more attention to herself.

Then she heard two shots. 

Olivia was certain she felt time stop. Her mind played out a scene before her as if she was watching it happen. She saw James’ surprise as the bullets hit his chest, saw him fall backwards onto the ground, then a dark stain began to grow on his jacket as his lifeless eyes stared up at her.

She tore downstairs and rushed toward the door. Alexei grabbed her before she could reach it and she had to fight the urge to truly make an attempt at the struggle. 

“You sick bastard,” she screamed, and she found herself surprised that she was likely only half-acting. “He never did anything to hurt you. You horrible, awful person.”

She clawed at him and kicked at his shins as if that was the only way she knew to fight him. For the first time, she hated that she had to keep up the pretense. And, for the first time since that horrible night her parents died, she truly wanted to kill someone. 

Without conversation, they forced her and Dubois into the back of his limousine. A SMERSH guard was the driver. Olivia wondered vaguely where Dubois’ staff was and hoped SMERSH hadn’t killed them as well. 

The car that James had been taken in was gone by the time they reached that part of the road. Olivia looked out the window the entire drive down the road but was unable to see anyone. As they pulled out onto the main road, Olivia realized they must have taken James somewhere else to dispose of his body.

She curled up in the corner of the back seat knowing the darkness overtaking her was not merely a part of her character.


	14. Chapter 14

“M,” the secretary’s voice over M’s intercom startled Tanner. “You wanted to be notified when Dubois was extradited.”

“Yes,” M replied. “Thank you. What is their ETA?”

“005 says they should be at base within five hours,” she said.

“Alright, tell 005 to contact me as soon as they have Dubois in a cell,” M told her.

“Yes, M,” she said.

Then the silence of the prior five minutes returned briefly before Tanner spoke again.

“That can’t be the end of the story,” Tanner said. “I mean, Bond can’t.”

He stopped. Bond most certainly could be dead. Maybe this was the reason M wanted Q to bring him back quickly.

“No,” M sighed. “It’s not the end of the story at all. I had to go on. There was a bomb headed for the West German Chancellery, after all.”

* * *

_Olivia was sitting at M’s desk. She looked at the room and realized she was sitting in M’s chair. Across from her was a very serious looking young man. He seemed vaguely familiar and Olivia’s mind tried to recall where she’d seen him._

_Looking down at the file on the desk in front of her, she saw James’ name. She glanced to her left, at the window, and saw in the reflection that she was very old._

The car jerking to a stop woke Olivia out of her dream. She had forced herself to sleep the 500km trip, waking only when they stopped at the border, so she could be ready to move when she needed.

Dubois was forced to remain in the car while Olivia was taken from the back and strong-armed toward a small building. It was still dark. She estimated that it must be near midnight. They were in some sort of warehouse district and no one else looked to be about.

Inside the building there was an office and a waiting area. She was locked inside the office, but her captors did not tie her hands. One of them brought a sandwich and some water after a bit and sat with her in the room while she ate. From that act, she presumed they planned to allow her to live, at least for a little while longer.

She had already figured she was collateral to insure that Dubois followed through with the bombing and didn’t cause them any trouble.

She took the chance that the food wasn’t drugged and began to eat. It wouldn’t do to look suspicious. She hadn’t made herself out to anyone involved to be observant enough to even consider it a possibility.

As she ate, she considered her possibilities. She now had no choice but to find a way out. James was gone. Even if he had found her note before the guards found him, there was no way he could have notified Six. There was only one option and she had no choice but to take it.

James had been correct in his assessment of her. She didn’t want to kill anyone. She’d had to do it twice, in self-defense, since she became an agent. Otherwise, she tried to find ways around it. She had realized by the time she’d been with Six for half a decade that being a double-0 was not something she could do. She only kept trying because Martin wanted her to.

Tonight, she knew, there would be no way around it. If these guards lived, she wouldn’t make it out herself. Olivia chewed on her sandwich and mentally prepared herself for the inevitable.

Once she finished her sandwich, the guard picked up the plate and glass to take out of the room. Olivia seized her chance.

The guard had his rifle strapped behind his back and she pulled back on it then shoved him hard against the door. He was stunned for a moment and that was all she needed to pull out the gun and to shoot. She hoped that the area was as deserted as it had looked upon arrival.

The second guard tried to push open the door, but the first guard’s body was blocking it. Olivia could hear him fumble with his own rifle. She took only seconds to pull the first guard’s knife from its sheath and cut the strap that held his rifle to him. Then she quickly moved herself over to the corner as the bullets began to fly through the wall. She hoped the filing cabinet would be enough to protect her.

When the shooting stopped, the guard shoved open the door and stepped into the room. Olivia fired off two shots. At point blank range, her targets were easy to hit. The guard fell to the ground and Olivia set the rifle aside in favor of the two handguns and the two knives each had carried.

She found a duffle bag in the waiting area of the office that had a few rounds of ammunition. She stuffed the guns and knives inside and took a step toward the door. It opened before she reached it, revealing another guard who gave her a surprised look.

Olivia didn’t have a weapon in hand so she swung the bag at him. It hit him in the head and he staggered back against the door, dropping the hand gun he’d pulled from his holster. She rushed him, but he held his ground and shoved her back into the room. When he turned to grab up his gun, Olivia grabbed a chair and slammed it over his back. As he fell, his hand hit the gun and it skittered across the linoleum floor and underneath a cabinet.

Olivia dropped the chair and tried for the door again, but the guard caught her and attempted to get his hand around her throat. She stamped one heel into his ankle, then kicked back against his shin with her other. He yelled a curse and released his grip enough that she slipped away from him, but he still stood between her and the door.

She stepped back from him to give herself more room for her attack. There was no time to draw a gun or knife from the bag. She was just glad he didn’t seem to have a knife on him.

He chuckled and spoke in Russian.

“Feisty little bitch,” he said.

She smiled at him.

“You have no idea,” she replied in Russian.

Hearing her speak in Russian gave him enough a surprise that she was able to move against him.

As they fought, Olivia continued to try to maneuver herself so she could get to the door, but the man was able to keep himself enough in control that she never had more than a second to glance at it before he was between them again.

She knew neither of them could last much longer than five minutes at the rate they were going at each other, so she had to think fast and try to stay afloat longer than him. She had managed to drop the bag near the door so that if she was successful in overpowering him, it would be quick work to grab it up and run outside.

Olivia had him face down on the ground, one hand twisted behind his back, the other held down by one of her knees. Her other knee was pressed into his back in hopes to put pressure on his breathing. She reached down to try to find a location on his neck to render him unconscious, when suddenly the door flew open.

It startled her enough that she loosened her grip and gave the man the opportunity to throw her backwards off him.

She swore loudly and looked toward the door with dread to see how many more SMERSH agents had arrived. Her mouth fell open in surprise.

“James?”

It was impossible. How could he be here? She briefly wondered if it was another time travel incident but the guard didn’t give her time to ponder it. He grabbed her up and attempted to pin her in front of him, likely to put her between himself and the gun James was pointing into the room.

Olivia elbowed him hard in the gut and threw her head back and made contact with his Adam's apple. She heard him gag as he released her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

He stood in the doorway but didn’t move to help her, just kept his gun trained on the guard.

“I thought I was coming to rescue you,” he said. “But I’m not really sure you’re in need of it.”

She landed a blow to the guard’s chest then used her small stature to run him up against the wall and knock the wind out of him.

“Would it help if I cowered in the corner and squealed each time you landed a hit?” he asked.

She looked at him as she turned to flip the guard over onto the floor.

“It might,” she growled at him under the weight of the guard.

The guard hit the floor hard and when he opened his eyes, she could see his head had hit hard enough to likely concuss him. Olivia turned him quickly onto his stomach and pulled his arms behind him then looked around for something to secure him.

A pair of cuffs dropped onto his back and Olivia looked up at James who had an unreadable look on his face. Or maybe Olivia just didn’t want to read it because it said more than she wanted to know.

She quickly cuffed him while James walked over to the office and glanced in. When he returned, he gave her a grim look. Olivia ignored him.

In a closet by the door, she found a wire hanger and twisted it around the guard’s ankles then pulled them up and twisted the hook around the cuffs so he was essentially hogtied in a non-fatal manner. Removing the neckerchief she’d worn, she shoved it into his mouth. Then she grabbed the bag and went out the door.

“Is this your car?” she asked regarding a black jeep she found parked outside.

“No, Martin just dropped me off around the block ten minutes ago,” he said.

Olivia gave him an incredulous look.

“We were in a bit of a hurry,” he said. “We’d gotten behind you too far when we had to transfer cars due to the three dead SMERSH agents in the first one I’d been driving.”

Olivia wanted to hug him. He’d been the one to do the killing when she had thought he had been the one killed.

But her relief was short lived as her mind reminded her of the urgency of the situation. She ran back into the office and found the keys in the pocket of the third guard. Returning, she found Bond in the passenger seat, which relieved her even more.

“Where is Martin?” she asked, as she drove as fast as she dared toward the chancellery. “And how did you find me?”

“Dubois’ car has a trace on it,” he said. “Maybe SMERSH hadn’t had time to check it over before they impulsively left.”

Olivia nodded.

“The car was shown to stop back there for long enough that he suspected that’s where they’d taken you.”

“Lucky guess,” Olivia said.

She wanted to ask what James or Martin would have done if they’d been wrong, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

“Martin is following the car to wherever it stops next,” he said.

“I think they are going to hit the chancellery tonight,” she said.

“Well, we’d better call someone because we are certainly not going to make it tonight,” James told her.

“Why won’t we?” she asked. “It’s not that far.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked. “It’s at least 600 km from here.”

“Where do you think the chancellery is?” she asked.

“My god, it’s in Berlin, of course,” he said.

“Why on earth would it be in Berlin?” she asked. “And which Berlin would it be in?”

“Which Berlin?” he asked, sounding more exasperated each time he spoke. “What the hell do you mean?”

“East or West?” she said.

“East or,” he paused.

He let out a long drawn out ‘oh.’

“That’s right,” he said. “It’s 1975.”

“Wait, so the chancellery is in Berlin in 2010?” she asked. “How is that even possible?”

“Um, I don’t think you really want to know,” he replied.

No, she didn’t.

They were silent for a few more minutes, but as they approached their destination Olivia finally spoke.

“I thought you were dead,” she said quietly.

She could see him give her a surprised look in the corner of her eye.

“I’m glad you are not.”


	15. Chapter 15

“We are about five blocks from the Chancellery here,” Olivia said as she parked the Jeep. “It is guarded, but probably not very heavily since they are not completely moved in.”

She opened her door and exited the vehicle.

“How big is the bomb?” he asked as he followed suit.

“Big enough they’d require some sort of truck to carry it,” she explained as she reached into the back seat and pulled out the duffle bag.

She set it on the passenger’s seat and came around to stand by James.

“Do you think they’ll just set it off in front of the building?” he asked.

She shook her head and opened the bag, then checked the guns out of sight of the windows.

“It’s not really SMERSH’s MO,” she said. “Of course, they are in their dying gasps so it is entirely possible.”

She put everything back in the bag and threw it over her shoulder. James looked at her as she closed the door and locked it.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s in the early hours of the morning and it’s cool,” he said. “I know you’re probably amped up from the adrenaline but you don’t really look dressed for a stroll.”

He removed his jacket and helped her into it. It was large enough on her that it also covered the duffe bag. 

“Here, if you put the bag just so,” he said as he adjusted it.

He smiled at his work. Olivia gave him a cold glare.

“I look pregnant,” she said.

“Exactly,” he replied then held his hand out to her. “And we are going on a lover’s stroll because it’s just too difficult for you to sleep.”

She rolled her eyes but took his proffered hand in hers. Then she led him quickly toward their destination.

“You know, it’s nearly dawn,” she said.

“Yes, I’d noticed,” James replied.

“Many deliveries are made early in the morning,” she said.

“Wouldn’t there be a lot of people around by then?” he asked.

“Well, one of two things are possible,” she explained. “Either they are going to arrange for an early delivery, then they won’t have as many guards to deal with and Dubois can easily be taken in with them. Or they will do a later delivery, then your thought about just parking it and blowing it up will be very realistic.”

“Shouldn’t we contact the Bonn office?” James asked.

To his surprise, Olivia shook her head.

“Not enough time,” she said. “By the time they contacted the station head and he attempted to put me in touch with locals or with Martin, it might be too late.”

James felt a little stunned.

“What, you don’t approve?” she asked.

“No, I agree, it’s just,” James fumbled for the right words that wouldn’t give her information she didn’t want.

“It’s just that you know me as M and as M I probably have ripped strips from you for the same thing,” she said.

James steps faltered momentarily.

“Uh, well, yes,” he said.

“Silly boy,” Olivia laughed. “Of course, M would have to do that. There is more accountability for M than there is for even a double-0.”

James found that her laughter took the sting from the reality of her words. He never really thought of her responsibilities as M and how different that was from his toward her. 

Olivia slowed as they approached the perimeter of the Chancellery. They skulked around toward the back of the building where they found the delivery entrance. There was a large white truck parked outside, but no real activity. Hiding behind a trash bin, Olivia removed the bag and rolled up the sleeves of the jacket. She stuffed the two guns into her pockets and handed one of the knives to him.

They observed the loading bay for a few minutes and found that there was at least one guard Olivia recognized as SMERSH standing in the bay, his rifle slung across his back.

“We could try the old ‘throw the rock to the other side of the guard trick,’” James jokingly suggested.

“Oh, do be serious and try to be helpful,” Olivia chided.

Olivia was silent for a moment, then removed the jacket and handed it to him.

Next to the bin was a box of Coke bottles probably left to be taken for the deposit return. She handed him one and had him hold it so the label covered by his hand. James smiled at her as he realized her plan. 

In a moment, James was shuffling toward the guard, who still had his back turned to him. He intentionally stumbled as he got closer and fell to the ground with a loud huff.

The guard swung around, but didn’t shoot. James was moaning and then he started singing quietly and laughing as if he was drunk. The guard started talking to him in German, telling him he couldn’t be there. James let out a laugh and replied in German that that was exactly what his wife had told him when she’d kicked him out earlier.

The guard chuckled and moved to help James up. James had his gun at the ready and as soon as the guard recognized him, he jerked him tightly to him and shoved the gun into his chest and pulled the trigger. The bodies muffled the sound and James was glad the bullet did not go through.

Olivia was hurrying over to him as he drug the guard to the side of the loading bay so he couldn’t be found.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she hissed in a whisper. “Why didn’t you just use the knife?”

“It wasn’t that long,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I could hit something vital that fast.”

She didn’t look convinced. But she took the hat off the guard and put it on James’ head. They took the rifle and another gun and knife. In the guard’s jacket pocket, James found a silencer for the gun. That was a relief since they still had no idea what they’d find when they got inside.

Olivia shoved one gun in her dress belt and put the knife in a pocket inside the dress. 

“I didn’t know that had pockets,” James commented as they quickly pulled their resources.

“I made them myself,” she said. “It’s damn annoying to not have someplace to hide a weapon if you need it. People don’t expect a nice dress to have them so that makes it even better.”

James followed her up to the door and they peeked around into the receiving area. There was a receiving office with one guard standing outside. James guessed that they either had the normal employees locked up in there, or worse. Aside from him, however, there was no one.

“Who should surprise this one?” she asked.

“I’d rather it was me,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Not because I don’t think you are capable, but with me here, your survival is a wild card now,” he said. 

He gave her a meaningful look which was met with surprise, but then incredulity. 

“OK, you can do it,” he said.

“Yes, then you come up behind with the silencer and deal with him before he has time to move,” she said.

“I could do that without you making an entrance,” he grumbled as she moved toward the door.

He came up behind her and did as she had commanded. Then they hurried to the office where they found two men tied and gagged. Olivia spoke to them as James watched outside. When they were freed, they ran out the back and down the alley.

“I gave them the number of the local office,” she said. “They are supposed to find a payphone and call from there.”

“Do you think they will?” he asked as they moved to enter the building.

“They wanted to call from here but I told them they’d likely get killed because there was a bomb,” she explained.

“Anything else useful?” he asked.

“The guard gave me directions to the main area of this section,” she said. “Apparently SMERSH was rather upset that they weren’t able to get into the cabinet building. This is only the department building.”

“Well, that’s what you get for not following the plan accordingly,” he said.

Olivia rolled her eyes at him.

They moved quickly down the halls, James right behind Olivia. She stopped as the hall was about to open into a large room. They could both hear sounds now. Dubois’ and Alexei’s voices floated toward them but James couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Olivia peeked around the corner again then turned back to James.

“There’s only one guard,” she said.

“That doesn’t seem right,” he commented.

“Well, once we’re in the room, we’ll assess the necessity of taking him out,” she said. “Then we’ll situate ourselves to be able to see if any more arrive.”

James nodded. Then they stepped into the room together.

“Step away from the bomb,” Olivia said, raising her gun toward Dubois. James trained his on the guard who was standing about 20 meters behind Alexei.

“Drop your weapons,” James added, then began to move to the side of the room so he could keep an eye on both entrances while Olivia dealt with the men.

“Leonore,” Dubois asked in obvious surprise. “What is the meaning of this?”

Alexei scoffed.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he said. “She’s a spy. She’s been playing you.”

“No, that’s not possible,” Dubois said. 

Alexei just rolled his eyes and muttered ‘imbecile’ in Russian.

The guard held his ground momentarily, then Alexei ordered him to divest himself of all his weapons. James had the man kick them toward him once he had and had Alexei do the same. Dubois was looking at Olivia in disbelief still.

“It’s too late,” Alexei said. “The timer has been set and it will go off in 10 minutes.”

Olivia kept her gun on Dubois and ordered him to stop it.

“You won’t get a penny of our money if you do that,” Alexei said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Olivia said. “He’s going to be dead if he doesn’t stop it because I’m going to just tie the three of you to it and walk away.”

Dubois moved quickly toward the bomb and began to work on it. After several seconds he looked up at Alexei in horror.

“What have you done?” he asked.

Alexei smirked.

“I have made sure you will not be able to stop it,” he said.

“What are you saying?” Olivia demanded.

“Leonore, darling,” Dubois pleaded. “There is no way for me to stop this bomb. It has been altered and I do not know how to do it.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing the next chapter this morning but this didn't fit with the second half so I'm posting it separately. The next chapter will bump this up to E, in case that makes anyone squeamish.

“Oh, for christ’s sake,” Olivia exclaimed. “You’re supposed to be some damned genius.”

She directed him to stand near the others and indicated to James that he was now in charge of the lot. Then she set down her gun and had a look inside the bomb. She took the knife from her pocket and used it to unscrew the panel. Inside she examined the wiring to assess what had been done to supposedly make it impossible to disable. Unless there was a trigger mechanism, she should be able to disarm it without blowing them all to bits.

As she focused and worked to recall everything she had been taught and learned on her own, the room began to fade. She was no longer aware of anything but the wires for the bomb. She ignored the timer that was ticking down in her periphery vision.

Whoever had done the work for Alexei was good. Olivia reminded herself that she was better. Her mind stilled and finally all she saw was the internal workings. If the people around her were starting to fret, she didn’t notice. Vaguely, she noted a commotion at the hallway she and James had entered from, but she left that to James to take care of.

When she finally worked it out in her head, she took up her knife again and cut the wires in the order of succession that she had surmised would disarm it. Blue, cut, then green, cut. There was a long beep, then all was silent.

To her right, she heard clapping and looked toward the hallway to see Martin entering. She became aware of the fact that she was drenched in sweat. Martin walked toward her and as he approached she began to shake. He led her to sit on one of the sofas in the room, then he took out his walkie-talkie and gave the all clear.

The room was suddenly filled with commotion as German soldiers came in to secure it and take away the prisoners. Olivia concentrated on her breathing and tried to control the shaking. Shortly, she felt someone place a jacket around her and looked up to see James. His face was serious and he looked much like he had in her dream.

One of the Germans commented on the inappropriateness of the presence of such a weak woman and Olivia watched as the look on James’ face changed to a far more deadly one.

“Well, someone had to disarm the bomb,” he chided in German. “We couldn’t wait until you’d finished pissing your pants in fear behind the wall.”

After a moment, Martin leaned in and asked, in a whisper, if she could stand. She nodded and he helped her up, but as they moved to leave, he released his hold on her. He shook his head silently over hers to someone behind her and she assumed James must have tried to reach for her.

Her body was terribly cold now from the drench of sweat and the ebbing adrenaline but she squared her shoulders and followed Martin as he led her and James from the Chancellery.

* * *

It was evening again by the time all the questions were answered and papers were signed. Olivia slept between bouts of that on a couch in the station head’s office. She and James had been separated for their interviews and she did not see him until Martin came in to tell her he was sending her back to England with James.

They were booked on a red eye to London from Bonn, first class, so they could both get some more sleep. Olivia had a million questions for James but they could not discuss them in the airport nor the plane. Instead, once the seat belt light went out, she leaned back her seat and James,’ lifted the arm rest between them, and curled up next to him.

He stiffened for a moment and Olivia thought she might have miscalculated, but then he put his arm around her. The stewardess came around with pillows and blankets and by the time James had pulled the blanket up around them and she’d adjusted her pillow, she was beginning to nod off.

“What a night,” she mumbled against his neck. “Christ, I won’t miss the Cold War.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so note the rating change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized as I wrote this chapter that I had posted a picture of James for the story, but not Olivia. Here is the photo, which was actually the thing that prompted this entire story: https://flashbak.com/judi-dench-as-the-amoral-sally-bowles-in-cabaret-1968-19211/

M stood under the umbrella held over her by her guard as she unlocked the door to her flat. Then she said goodnight and he returned to the car and drove back to MI6. She shut the door and picked the mail up off the floor. She didn’t look at it at all, just put it on the table next to the chair. She removed her coat and went straight into the living room liquor cabinet.

She’d dismissed Tanner as soon as they were certain Dubois was secured in solitary confinement. She didn’t want him talking with anyone about what had happened. Q had spent the day working on Dubois’ machine but had not made any headway. She ordered him home and to rest, knowing if she didn’t, he would fall asleep on his feet trying to figure out this mystery.

Tanner had been disappointed as they’d parted ways in the parking garage. He had assumed, rightly, that she had not told him the whole story. He was right, but M wasn’t sure how much she should tell him. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Tanner, he was one of the few people she trusted implicitly. But the past was painful and she hadn’t had to revisit it in a long while. When she had, George had been here to remind her that she should think about the good things, not just the end.

Finally, M finished her scotch and turned off the downstairs lights then ascended the stairs to her room. She glanced into the extra bedroom. She’d never called it the guest room because she had never had guests there. Turning on the light, she took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.

She sat on the bed and ran her hand over the top of the cedar chest she kept at the foot of the bed. It had not been opened in years, and she wasn’t about to open it tonight with so many wounds reopening.

M shook herself out of her thoughts and left the room.

“Good thoughts,” she mumbled to herself as she headed toward the shower.

She dropped her clothes on the chair in her room and headed into the shower. She turned the water as hot and hard as she could take and stood under it until the pain felt like it might numb her. She reached for the shampoo and opened the bottle, then she held it up to her nose and breathed deeply the scent of gardenia. The emotions that threatened to overwhelm her came swiftly, but she forced herself to hear George’s voice.

“Good memories,” he’d say. “You had many, think of those.”

M forced back her tears and poured a small amount of shampoo into her palm. As she massaged it into her hair, she forced herself to remember.

* * *

Olivia paid the cab driver and led James to her flat. They took the lift to the third floor and Olivia nodded in greeting to one of her neighbors who entered the lift as they exited.

“It’s not much, I’m afraid,” she said as she opened the door for James. “I’m not here much so I don’t feel like I need much.”

She went to the living room window and pushed it open to let some air into the stuffy flat. Then she did the same in the bedroom.

“It’s a nice neighborhood, though,” she said. “So at least I don’t have to worry when I’m gone.”

James nodded.

“Who was the man at the lift?” he asked.

“That’s Mr. Allen,” she said. “He’s a nice enough man, but he has a hard time talking to others. The more people, the more it bothers him. He works for the tax department and doesn’t have to interact with a lot of people.”

Olivia went into the kitchen and found some cans of soup and fruit.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Not really,” he said. “The breakfast at the airport was good enough.”

Olivia nodded.

“I could really use a shower,” she said.

“Alright,” he said.

He looked like he was going to take a seat on the living room sofa, but Olivia pulled his arm then pushed him up against the wall.

She pulled his face down and kissed him deeply. He froze for a split second, then, to Olivia’s delight, he responded vigorously. She began to unbutton his shirt, then guided him toward the shower.

When they arrived, she pushed James’ shirt off his shoulders and ran her hands across his chest and abdomen. He shuddered and his breath hitched. She looked up at him and found his pupils already blown. Olivia was both surprised and extremely aroused by the idea that she had such an effect on him so quickly.

Reaching for his waistband, she began to undo his belt. She wanted to get him naked and fucking her in the shower now. She couldn’t wait another moment.

James grabbed her wrists to stop her. She gave him a confused look.

“We have to go into Six tomorrow,” he said.

“Yes,” Olivia answered, not sure why that mattered at all.

“Then Martin will put me into whatever new life Six has made up for me,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered again, but this time it was a whine.

Him being sent away is why it was so important for this to happen right now. She needed him, had wanted him for quite some time. After he’d stood by and let her deal with the SMERSH agent in the warehouse office, she’d had such a desire to do this, but they hadn’t the time until now.

“Then I don’t want this to be fast and furious,” he said.

His thumbs began to rub the insides of her wrists.

“I have waited so long for this,” he said. “If one shot is all I get, I want to make very slow, very passionate love to you.”

Olivia considered his words and was surprised when she finally understood. James was in love with her, but not just her, here in 1975, he was in love with her in 2010. That made no sense. She would be 70, what could she have to offer him at that age?

In a moment, she was distracted by his finger tracing the collar of her dress from her neck to between her breasts.

“Please, Olivia,” he said, his voice rough and needy. “Please, let me make love to you.”

She stepped into his embrace and pressed her mouth to one of his nipples. She sucked at it and slowly ran her tongue around it until it was hard and James was panting. He sank his fingers into her hair and growled her name.

Olivia pulled away and smiled at him as she turned to the shower to start it. Then she slowly began to unbutton her dress.

James leaned against the wall of the bathroom as he watched her slowly strip off her clothes. Olivia had been with a lot of men, both for her job and just for her own pleasure. No man had ever looked at her with the desire James obviously had for her. And that he’d begun to have these desires long after she would consider herself beautiful meant that he wanted her for more than just her body.

All his actions since she had met him told her that her mind and her abilities as an agent were what he found attractive. No one had ever cared about those things, at least none of her lovers. Her work and her intelligence had always been the deal breaker with every relationship she’d had since university.

Once she was stripped, she slowly ran her hands over her torso for his benefit. He licked his lips as she lingered at her breasts. Then she stepped into the shower to wait for him.

James undressed, though not as slowly as she. When she saw him drop his shorts, she took a deep breath at how well-endowed her truly was. If he knew how to touch her properly, and Olivia had no doubt he did, this was going to a magnificent day.

He entered the shower with her and kissed her as he slowly moved his hand from her hips up to her breasts. When he placed his hands on them he pulled away from her lips and watched as his hands worked each nipple into a hard pebble. Olivia was surprised at the effect he had on her body just by this slow, deliberate exploration of her body.

Tearing himself away from her as if it was painful to stop touching her, James reached for the shampoo. He moved her under the water to get her hair wet, then turned her around and began to rub the shampoo into her hair. Olivia closed her eyes and sighed as she allowed the intimacy to take over her senses.

Shortly, he began to wash her body using his hands. He lathered her skin slowly, until he had covered her, spending extra time on her feet, which still amused Olivia.

“What is it with you and my feet?” she asked as she leaned back against him as he rinsed her body.

“I’d never seen them before,” he said.

She turned and gave him a dubious look.

“You had seen all the other parts before?” she asked.

“Uh, no, but, um,” he mumbled as he glanced back at her feet. “I was just surprised how intimate it felt to see them the first time.”

Olivia smiled and laughed as she turned him under the water.

“You sure you can reach high enough to wash my hair?” he smirked.

She glared at him and gave him a poke to his ribs. They laughed and James leaned down to kiss her again. He trailed his lips down her neck and to her breasts as he lowered himself to his knees before her. She waited for him to make a joke about how this was the only way she could reach his head, but when he looked at her, she saw he was serious about his position.

His hand slid down between her legs as she shampooed his hair and she moaned quietly when he prodded more deeply. She continued to wash his body as he pushed all the way inside her. Finally, she joined him on her knees, hands on his shoulders and head thrown back as he hooked his fingers inside her while his thumb rubbed tantalizing circles around her clit.

Olivia felt her orgasm slowly build in her body. By now, most men would have sped things up, and she would have thought nothing of it. James knew how to make it last in a good way, she thought as the build up gradually consumed her until she was forced to clamp her mouth tightly shut so the neighbors wouldn’t hear her keen as the most intense orgasm she’d ever had ripped through her body.

She felt the orgasm in every cell of her body as it pulsed repeatedly. Olivia had never felt close to blacking out as a result of an orgasm but she found herself leaning against James, the world around her was nothing as the rush of blood pounded in her ears and her body shuddered as he slowed his assault on her cunt.

As she regained control, more or less, of her senses, Olivia reached out and stroked James’ cock. She was rewarded with a guttural moan. She understood his sentiment completely She could barely force out words in any sensible manner, she was so lost in this feeling.

“James. Bed. Now.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James. Olivia. In a bed. And nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this is just smut. I think I did a better job with the shower scene, but hopefully this will be good enough.

James wrapped Olivia in her robe and carried her to the bed. He was obviously still very aroused, and when he leaned into kiss her, Olivia reached down to stroke his shaft. Gently, he pulled her hand away and moved it above her head.

“Later,” he said.

Slowly and steadily he explored her body with his hands and his lips. It was as if he was trying to make sure he didn’t miss one part of her. He lingered on her breasts, kissing and biting and caressing and squeazing. Olivia was surprised at how close to an orgasm he was bringing her to by just his touch on her breasts.

He kissed and caressed down her abdomen. When he reached her hips, he nudged open her legs. Neither James nor Olivia had bothered to shave while in the shower. James nuzzled his face between her legs, then looked up at her.

“Is this OK?” he asked. “I know my face is a bit rough.”

Olivia wanted to beg, but she was now beyond words, so she nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, before he spread her folds and took a long taste of her.

That was a first, Olivia thought. She’d never had a man thank her for allowing him to service her. In fact, she’d never had a man ask her if he could go down on her.

And then she just can’t think at all because, if she had thought his hand had been amazing in the shower, his tongue is even more so. Just as in the shower, he works her up, slowly, steadily, increasing the need for release, while at the same time somehow prolonging it in a pleasurable way.

Again, she clamped her lips shut tight and screamed in her throat as her orgasm was unleashed in her, sending her mind into an exquisite high while stars exploded behind her eyelids.

By the time she was coherent again, he had made his way to her feet. He kissed the top of her right foot, then he tested her arch with his tongue. Normally Olivia was at least a little ticklish there, but with the way her entire body felt as if it could melt into the bed beneath her, she only felt pleasure when he leisurely licked down to her toes.

He took each toe, one by one, into his mouth to suck them purposely. Olivia had absolutely no idea before this moment that it could even be something that would result in such desire in her. She whimpered when he abandoned the right foot to move to the left, where he repeated his treatment. 

Finally, Olivia could stand it no longer. She had never had such a hunger for a man.

“Please, James,” she begged. “I need you inside me.”

Her voice sounded desperate, but she found she couldn’t be bothered to hate herself for it as she might under other circumstances.

“You have a condom?” he asked.

Olivia nodded and pointed at her side table. James moved from the foot of the bed, where he’d been kneeling at her feet, to retrieve the condom and lube. He opened the rubber and rolled it on as Olivia watched breathlessly. 

James crawled back onto the bed and knelt between her legs, then he rubbed his hands quickly together as if trying to warm them. Olivia was confused for a moment, but when he put the lube on finger, then began to prepare her, she felt the heat from his hand and it took away from the sting of the cold lubricant.

She whimpered again as he prepped her.

“Please,” she moaned, sounding far more needy that she would have liked, but James was so good that she couldn’t help herself.

He set aside the lube and leaned over her, lining himself up and slowly pushing himself in. Olivia watched his face in amazement. He had closed his eyes and was reveling in the feel of her as he languorously stretched her. 

When he was deeply embedded in her, he buried his face in her neck and sucked and her pulse point until she knew she was going to have to wear a high necked sweater to Six in the morning. Instead of being upset, though, she just groaned gutterally.

“Are you alright?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes, James, please, fuck me,” she begged. “I need it. Please.”

Olivia had never begged for anything like this. There had never been another man she had wanted this badly. No man had ever made her want any of this as severely as he did.

James began to thrust into her at a pleasurable pace, yet again bringing here steadily to an intense climax. Olivia wrapped her legs around James’ back as her body fell into rhythm with his. As the onslaught of pleasure collided with her emotions, she closed her eyes and felt tears begin to roll down her cheeks. 

He was whispering to her, beautiful words about how he had loved her for so long. About how he had desired her and fantasized about this very thing. She was so beautiful, he said. She was so perfect for him. Did she feel it too? 

The ‘it,’ she knew, was the way it felt like far more than just a physical coupling. Olivia had never felt this emotionally close to anyone before. It was as if she couldn’t tell, in the midst of their pleasure, where the one ended and the other began. 

“Oh, god, Olivia,” James’ voice was strangled and she realized he had held on for far too long to wait for her to come a third time.

“James, come for me,” she said.

He gasped and reached back for her legs. Pulling them apart, he pushed them up so her knees were nearly to her chest, then he slammed into her hard three times and gritted his teeth to control himself as he released a muffled shout of pleasure as he came.

At the angle he was hitting her at, Olivia felt herself approaching yet another orgasm. Her eyes flew wide as she looked up at his face and saw the determination mixed with satisfaction. He reached between them as he continued to thrust and in moments, Olivia’s world went black. If she screamed, or not, she had no idea, but when she came to her senses, she was shaking and James was whispering calming words in her ear while he stroked her arm.

She felt as if she had been ripped from her own skin, but not in a painful way. She simply didn’t feel able to settle within her own body. The pleasure buzzed in her body like a million light pricks of a million needles.

James shifted them so he could pull the covers over them. Then he pulled her into his arms and Olivia relaxed into his embrace.

“I’ve never,” she whispered, but stopped. She wasn’t entirely sure how to describe what had just happened.

“Neither have I,” James said.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, more smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned to put this chapter with the last one, but I was afraid you'd all spontaneously combust and that would effectively end our lovely fandom. ;D

When Olivia finally woke, she was surprised to find it dark already. She and James had fallen asleep, she was sure, by 10 or 11 in the morning. She looked over at her clock on the table. The green numbers glowed out and announced that it was nearly 1900. 

James was not in the bed, but she could hear him out in the kitchen. 

God, she could truly get used to that, she thought. 

A pang of regret tugged at her heart. She couldn’t, because James was going to be sent away in the morning. 

Sighing, she walked over the en suite and rinsed her body quickly in the shower, then brushed her teeth and combed out her hair, which she hadn’t done in her haste earlier. She wrapped up in her robe and joined James in the kitchen.

The look he gave her sent an immediate flush of desire through her body. She felt her cheeks warm and her breasts swell at the ideas that look gave her. James tore his eyes from hers and slowly lowered them until she was sure all he was focusing on was her feet. That made her smile and chuckle.She walked over to him and they shared a long, deep kiss.

“I made some soup,” he said when they broke away to breath, panting heavily and leaning against each other.

“Well, I think that’s probably all I have, after all this time,” she said. “I’ll have to go out to the market….”

She didn’t finish her thought, because she would go out to the market after she left him at Six in the morning. He reached for her hand and lifted her wrist to his lips. He lingered there and held her gaze, letting her know he understood.

They sat down at her small kitchen table. She’d never had anyone for breakfast here before as she’d always preferred to make her one night stands just that. But that wasn’t really what this was, as much as she might want to pretend. There was something between her and James that she had never known before, and he had apparently not either.

After they ate, she sent him to the shower while she washed the few dishes. She wasn’t quite sure what to do now. She knew, of course, the sex was inevitable. That was how they would finish out their time together, in hot, desperate sex. Trying to deny that it would kill the two of them to part.

Olivia dried her hands and turned to James when he entered the room. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him standing naked before her.

He chuckled.

“Well, all my clothes are in Paris,” he said.

“Certainly the best excuse for nudity anyone has ever given me,” she said as she sauntered toward him, dropping her robe as she approached.

He leaned down to kiss her and pull her into his embrace. She pushed him toward the bedroom, then onto the bed.

“My turn,” she smirked, climbing on top of him.

She kissed his lips while she rocked her body slowly over him, rubbing her breasts against his nipples. He whimpered and reached for her, but she lifted herself and grabbed his wrists. She placed his hands above his head and held them there with hers while she continued to kiss him.

Repeating his actions earlier, trying to work his body into her memory with her hands and her lips, she made her way slowly down his body. She stroked his cock carefully, but when she leaned down to take him into her mouth, he barked out “no.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said.

She cocked an eyebrow at him because his lips were telling her one thing but his eyes and his body were saying something entirely different.

“What if I want to do it?” she asked, coyly while dragging her index finger along his hard shaft.

He whimpered again.

“Then use a condom,” he breathed as she ran her finger around his tip.

That was another new revelation to Olivia, she’d had men angry she demanded they use condoms, but never one demand she did. She smiled at him and shook her head as she reached over to the side table where they’d left the box earlier.

“Only two left,” she pouted. 

“Then we’ll have to use them wisely,” he said breathlessly as she wrapped her hand around him, enjoying the feel of his girth.

As soon as she had the condom on, she took his tip into her mouth and sucked. James keened and whimpered. Then he reached down to stroke her head. She took him deeper into her mouth and began to bob up and down while she sucked.

The effect she had on James would have surprised her had he not had the same effect on her. He seemed lost in the moment, barely able to concentrate enough after a moment than to do more than rest his hand on her head.

When he felt himself hit the back of her throat, he protested again. 

“No, no,” he breathed. “I don’t want to cum in your mouth.”

He reached a shaky hand toward the side table and picked up the lube, but Olivia took it from him and put some onto her fingers. He watched her as she prepared herself. A low whine from him told her that she’d had the desired effect.

She set the bottle aside and straddled him. He reached down to align them and she slowly took him inside herself. When she rested once he was all the way inside her, they both moaned in pleasure.

Oliva began to move as James rested his hands on her hips. The mattress bounced beneath them as they got their rhythm in sync. Olivia lost herself in the feel of him and in the rhythm of their bodies and the sounds of the room. 

Shortly, he gripped her hips more tightly and Olivia leaned forward to rest her hands on his chest. She flicked her thumbs across his nipples and James suddenly came without warning, thrusting wildly up inside her. It wasn’t without thought, however. The manner which he slid against her was deliberate and intended to bring her off soon after him, and it did.

She fell atop him, panting and dripping with sweat from the intensity of her orgasm. Her body was shaking uncontrollably How this was possible, to feel it all so intensely time after time was more than she could understand.

As they both calmed their breathing, James pulled the blanket over them. Olivia was loathe to move off him, but James seemed to know this and held her tightly to him as if to say that was what he wanted as well.

They fell asleep that way. At some point in the night, Olivia slipped off of him, but she curled up against his side as she had on the plane. Her nose nuzzled against his neck, breathing the scent of them, together, trying to seal the memory into her mind so she wouldn’t forget any of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand, summer school begins tomorrow so I will not be writing more chapters until Friday, most likely. Summer school is basically 18 weeks of classes condenses into 6. I have two hours of class and at least four hours of homework each day, M-F. The subject is Calculus.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all. Sorry it's been a while. I had an exam on Monday so I spent last weekend studying. I got an A so I guess it was worth it. :) I had hoped to post two chapters each weekend, but it looks like it might only be one. We'll see. I certainly can't promise more than that if I want to maintain my A in the class.
> 
> There's supposed to be an embedded image that tayryn made for me, but it doesn't show up on my computer. :/ Here's the link to it, but you can't click the link until you get to that part of the story because it will ruin it. ;) https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/7489/QWFvAZ.jpg

The sun shining through a small spot between the top of the curtains woke James from his slumber. Olivia was not in the bed, which surprised James. Not because she wasn’t there, but he had not noticed her leave. He had always been a terrible sleeper. As a child, his parents’ arguments had kept him up at night, after their death, he found himself terrified to sleep, lest death take him too. But he had slept soundly here in Olivia’s bed. And the small space where his conscious was slept soundly on. 

He rose and went into the bath. He saw that Olivia had laid out a razor and a small bottle of shaving cream. That made him chuckle. When Olivia was his M, or is, or however he was supposed to think of it, it was not permissible, barring severe injury or urgency, to come to a debrief or a meeting with her before shaving. She loathed a beard. She had tolerated it the previous day, however, and James knew it meant there was more going on between them than just lust and desire.

The razor wasn’t quite as smooth as the razors he was used to, but he made due. He dabbed the small cuts with tissue and stepped into the shower for a quick bathe. When he went back to the bedroom, he noticed some men’s clothing lying on a chair by the window. The knickers were a decent fit, but the pants needed a belt, which had also been provided. 

As he dressed, James forced himself to tamp down the jealousy he felt as he considered whose clothing it might be. He had no right to feel that way. He’d been with many women, and many of them M herself knew about. And even though Olivia was the much younger version, she knew he was an agent, she knew the sorts of things he had to do, and the sorts of comforts he had to seek.

He realized that this was one of the reasons he found himself so drawn to her, even when she was older. She knew. She understood. In general, she accepted it all. No one else had ever done so.

Not for the first time he wondered if time travel was circular. He wondered if that future M had known him now? But that made no sense at all. Because M’s file had said that her first marriage, the one before George Mansfield, had ended in divorce. James was an arse, but if he had been here he would have married her and he sure as hell wouldn’t have divorced her. What sort of idiot would?

He looked himself over in the mirror and decided that, despite the baggy look, it would have to do. He’d allowed his hair to begin to grow out so he didn’t look so much like a businessman, which had not been the sort of area he’d been living in while in Paris. It went with the suit, he thought. He looked at his face more closely to make sure he was smooth enough for her, then wandered out into the living area.

“If I’m going to stay here, I’m going to need to get an old-fashioned straight edge,” he said as he walked into the room. “These razors have a long way…”  
The rest of the words stuck in his throat as his eyes fell on her. She was sitting in the corner of the living room, by the window, sideways on the cushioned chair, reading a paperback. But it was her clothes that caught him up short.

She had on a short white slip and matching high lace stockings. The gap between the garments across her thighs was tantalizing. Over her slip, she wore his shirt, open in the front. James had seen her completely naked, had caressed and kissed every part of her body, but this look had him hard in an instant.

“What are you doing?” he managed to choke out.

“Hmm,” she looked up at him as if she hadn’t even heard him enter the room. “Oh, good morning. I’m reading.”

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” he mumbled as she turned back to her book.

He walked carefully into the kitchen, the loose pants even feeling too tight around him now. He was surprised to find some eggs on the countertop.

“I went to the grocer first thing,” she said.

He nodded, still not trusting himself to speak.

“I am so glad you can cook,” she said. “I don’t at all.”

Now this was information he’d never known and he turned to her in surprise.

“Can’t stand it,” she said, not looking up from her book. “I just eat from a can, or I eat out. I really can’t see why women enjoy it so much.”

James smirked. No, Olivia, it seemed, had never been remotely like other women. 

“Well, I don’t mind,” he said. “It keeps me busy in my down time.”

“Mmhmm,” she said. 

Then she spoke quietly, but just loud enough for him to hear.

“It doesn’t look like you’re having any down time right now.”

James steadied himself with a deep breath and reached into the cupboard for a bowl to mix the eggs.

“Are you alright?” she called to him with an innocent voice.

“Oh, yes, just fine,” he said, unable to keep his own voice from shaking.

He pulled a bowl from the cabinet and a pan from under the stove top, before beginning to crack the eggs. He finished whisking them all together and turned to ask if she’d thought to get cheese for an omelet when he was stopped up short again.

Olivia was still sitting in the chair, reading, but she had shifted in the seat. One leg was still draped over the arm but the other she had spread in front of her so her legs fell open, pushing up the slip. One hand was holding the book and the other was rubbing her leg just above the stocking, drawing his attention to the fact that she wore no knickers. 

James turned back to the eggs and considered his options. There was still one condom, but it was in the bedroom. He was never going to make it to the bedroom, and he didn’t want to anyway.

He turned and in a second he was on her, his hands pushing up her slip so he could bury his face between her legs. She was bare and his tongue slid over her smoothly as he took a long taste of her. The book fell to the floor with a satisfying thud and James anticipated the feel of her hands in his hair. When that didn’t happen, he was going to reach up and pull on down. He looked up, however, and found that she had both hands on her breasts through the fabric of her slip. 

The sight of her, hands on her own breasts, head thrown back in pleasure, and the small noises she was emitting despite her efforts to remain as silent as possible so as not to alert the neighbors as to what was going on in this flat made James even more voracious for her. He ate her relentlessly, licking, sucking, rubbing. He alternated his tongue and fingers up into her cunt and revelled in the tang of her flavor. 

In only a short time, she was panting and gripping her breasts as if she was holding on for dear life and when James made her come, she keened as quietly as she could and became rigid as she convulsed violently. The sight was more stimulating than anything James had ever seen and he found himself unable to control his reaction as he came with her.

When she collapsed onto the chair, panting as if she’d never get enough breath into her lungs, James kissed her pussy softly and gently rubbed her thighs. When he was satisfied that she would be OK, he rose and returned to that bath for another shower.

He looked at the clock on Olivia’s bedside table after he finished and saw that it was nearly time for them to leave. He’d have to hurry with the eggs. He threw on his old trousers and went to the kitchen.

Olivia stood at the counter, grating the cheese. Despite how utterly boneless she had appeared after he’d wasted her in the chair, her shoulders were stiff and she hunched over her task.

James walked up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. She instantly relaxed back into him. James couldn’t help but react. He put his arms around her and she turned and buried her face against his chest.

He had left many women in his life. Sometimes because they wanted it, sometimes because he did. He’d thought at one point that what had happened with Vesper was the worst thing that would ever happen to him. But this, parting from Olivia, felt unnatural.

The first time they’d made love he’d felt it, something completely out of his control that made their coupling feel like more than sex, more than even love. How it was possible, he didn’t know. Neither of them was a romantic, so it wasn’t some sort of feeling of infatuation. It ran so much deeper and now, because he couldn’t run the risk of changing things even further than he already had, he had to leave. 

James held her tightly, knowing that once they walked out her door, this would have to be over, regardless of what either of them wanted. And regardless of the fact that it felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real note, sorry. I'm in exam recovery mode and just wanted to get this chapter out. I hope you enjoy it. :)

2010

M stared out the window as her car drove through morning traffic toward Six. She had work to do, but it sat, untouched, on the seat next to her. She had to put this melancholy to rest. There would be no way to work if the feelings she had dredged up last night could not be pushed aside for the sake of her work.

She’d thought she’d worked through all of this years ago and had accepted what had happened, but now that she’d sent James back, it was all coming to the surface again. M tried to trick herself into believing she’d done it thinking she could alter events. She’d improperly assumed that Dubois would be able to explain the machine and Q would simply be able to bring James back to the present. The report she had received in her email that morning, however, was not encouraging.

Dubois was cooperating, however, it appeared he truly had no idea how the machine worked. He’d given the interrogators specs and they’d forwarded those to Q, but he had admitted that he really didn’t know what he’d done. Dubois was a vain man, at least he had been when M had known him all those years ago. If he’d known how to work the machine, he’d have given the barn away, so to speak.

The phone buzzed and M looked down to see a message from Q on the screen. He’d received the specs and was working on the machine. He’d send her an update when he knew anything more.

Something about the communication made M’s heart clench. If Q couldn’t bring James back, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. She was getting old and the first time had nearly killed her. Knowing now, that she had sent James back with the full knowledge of how it would end for him might be more than she could bear.

* * *

 

1975

Breakfast had been a muted affair. She and James sat silently while they ate their omelets. James intentionally ate with his left hand so he could reach over and touch her free hand on occasion and she could do the same. But they did not look at each other, and when Olivia headed toward the shower, they only touched fingers in the lightest of ways. It was as if they were gently trying to break away from each other.

In the shower, Olivia tried to refocus on the tasks at hand and stop thinking about this strange ache inside her and how it felt as if separating from James was far more than any other pain she’d experienced.

She had just finished washing her hair when the shower door suddenly opened and James joined her. Without a word, he crowded her against the wall and began to kiss her. He sighed when he lowered his hands to her breasts as if the contact had somehow alleviated him of a great stress..

Olivia reacted immediately and without thought. She responded to his kisses as if she needed them to breathe. Her hands skimmed down his chest and between his legs where she found him already hard and leaking. She vaguely wondered where the last condom was but then his hand was between her own legs and she found she truly didn’t even care anymore.

James quickly and expertly brought her off again. She knew time was limited so she didn’t mind. And the fact that something so fast could feel that intense made her wonder again at his skills.

When she could stand without his support again, she kissed her way down his chest, but as soon as he realized her intentions, she pulled her back up by her shoulders and kissed her hard.

“No,” he said. “It’s not necessary.”

“I told you, James, I want to.”

He shook his head and attempted to distract her by nipping his way down her neck hard enough to leave love-bites for the world to see.

“Is it because of the scars?” she asked.

He stilled and took a breath before looking at her again.

“I saw them yesterday,” she explained. “You were tortured? I really couldn’t think what else it could be.”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

“Does it hurt when someone goes down on you?” she asked, though it seemed strange that it would since her hand didn’t seem to hurt him at all.

James shook his head.

“It’s not that,” he said. “I just don’t want you to.”

He began to kiss her again, apparently considering the matter settled, but it bothered Olivia enough that she didn’t want to let it go.

“Is it because I was the one who sent you?” she asked.

He pulled back quickly and gave her such an incredulous look that she knew that thought had never crossed his mind.

“It’s my job,” he said, suddenly very adamant. “And it’s your job, as well.”

He leaned her forehead gently against hers. After several deep breaths, he slowly began to skim his hands lightly across her body. His hand dropped away, and he suddenly had the condom. He’d apparently slipped it onto the soap shelf when he’d entered. She hadn’t even noticed.

Again wordlessly, he slid it on then leaned in to kiss her again. She wondered how they were going to make this work. Most men didn’t really care to take her standing because she was too short and it required them to lift her the entire time. But James apparently had no such qualms. He smirked at her when she gave a squeak of surprise as he picked her up off the ground.

Olivia wrapped her legs around him as he pressed into her. God, he was so nice and thick. She’d never thought it looking at him.

Once he was in, he reached under her left leg and raised it and held it up with his arm. This allowed him to penetrate her deeply and Olivia’s gut clenched at the intensity of the sensation. She found it hard to keep her breaths regular as he thrust into her which added to the stimulation.

She lost all track of time and everything else around her. Even though their couplings the day before had been the most intense of any Olivia had ever experienced, James had found a way to make this even more so.

Again, he brought her up, slowly and steadily, in a most pleasurable regularity and as she approached her peak, Olivia found herself on the edge of blacking out. Then her mind and body exploded with pleasure.

James was carefully lowering her shaky legs to the ground when Olivia became aware of anything again. She leaned into him and muttered mostly unintelligible praises and gratitudes while she gently stroked his backside, the easiest part to reach considering her unsteady muscles.

They returned to silence as they bathed each other. Then, in an act Olivia was surprised to find more intimate than sex, they dressed each other carefully.

* * *

Exiting the flat brought a strange sensation. It was as if the small rooms had been something like a sanctuary and now that they had left, they both knew the reality and were ready to face it. Despite the subsiding of the pleasant feelings she’d had, it was a relief to find herself able to return to normal so easily.

James followed her to the car park where Olivia had stored her car while she had been abroad. She paid the man at the kiosk and headed to the corner where her car was parked. She felt a smile come involuntarily to her face at the sense of normalcy it brought her to do this small thing.

She removed the cover, with James’ help and stowed it in the boot. James was still standing and staring at the car when she finished.

“This is your car?” he asked quietly.

Olivia bit back a quip of “obviously” and just nodded.

He let out a low moan and Olivia wondered what was wrong with her car.

James reached out and rubbed his hand on the bonnet.

“We should have saved the last condom for this,” he sighed as if not fucking her on the car was the biggest disappointment of his life.

“Right here, in the car park?” she asked, incredulously.

He looked up at her and gave her a lascivious grin, then wiggled his eyebrows.

Olivia began to laugh at the absurdity.

“Oh, do shut up and get in the car,” she admonished through her chuckles.

Once inside, James joined her in the humor and they both sat and laughed uncontrollably for several minutes. When she had control enough of her laughter to drive, Olivia pulled out of the parking space.

Despite the knowledge they’d soon be parted, Olivia and James were still smiling when they arrived at Six.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth be told, I wrote that story the other day because my story brain had completely stopped working. I had to push a short one out. :D Anyway, I do plan on continuing this story, it's just so much longer than pretty much anything I've ever written that it's probably going to take a while. I haven't been up to writing a chapter a day during this break. I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'll work that out with my therapist.

As she and James passed through security at MI6 headquarters, Olivia’s earlier feelings of ease at returning to her usual life began to ebb, tempered by the inescapable truth that today would be the last time she would see James. He seemed to sense it as well. The camaraderie they’d had in the car ceasing and becoming silent.

She glanced at him as they entered the lift and second guessed her assumption about his silence. He had a look to him that was unlike any she’d seen from him so far, but she had seen it before. This was a look several of the double-0s wore, one that she’d always felt said they knew their duty and that duty meant their sacrifice.

Goose pimples began to break out along her arms as she considered how much he must have sacrificed already and how that had, hopefully, prepared him for whatever it was that Martin had set up for him. James didn’t seem like the type who could be idle without trouble. In the 24-hours since they’d returned to London, the two of them had split time between extremely intense sex and sleep, food even seemed an afterthought.

The lift opened and Olivia led James to Martin’s office. As they passed the other agents who worked on the floor, several came up to her to congratulate her for her mission success. It was the usual, many were happy for her, several begrudged her, and two of the men who had been opposed to her being an agent from the beginning simply ignored the commotion and remained at their desks.

When they finally made it to Martin’s office, the secretary waved them in. Martin was on the phone but indicated they should sit down in the chairs across the desk from him.

“Yes, M,” he said. “I will be there in about an hour.”

He hung up the phone and took a deep breath to transition from his conversation with M to his agent.

“You look fabulously rested, Olivia,” he said before turning to James.

“And you look,” he paused. “Well, damn, you look like an agent. Just like you did in France.”

Martin nodded as if James had somehow confirmed a suspicion of his.

“I had your things brought in from Paris, James,” he continued. “They are already at the place we’ve set up for you.”

He didn’t elaborate on the location of the place but Olivia knew that if the information was input in the new system, she could easily break into it and find where James was.

“I had logistics set things up for him,” Martin said, turning back to Olivia. “You know I trust them a little more.”

He left it hanging, probably more for James’ benefit than hers. She was well aware of whom in Six Martin trusted and didn’t, and why.

There was a thin file on the desk and Martin handed it over to James now. When he opened it and read the information, James’ narrowed his eyes, then looked up at Martin.

“Smythe?” he asked, sardonically.

“Yes, I know,” Martin chuckled. “But it is such a common name that you won’t have to worry about people wondering if you’re related to so-and-so they knew at university.”

“As for you,” Martin said to Olivia. “You’ll have to complete the usual post-assignment work, have a physical, etcetera, then you can take leave for a while.”

The way Martin glanced at James when he said “leave” caused Olivia to roll her eyes. She’d have been tempted two days ago to look up James on her leave, but now she knew that it would be a bad idea. She had a feeling that parting from him was going to be painful in a way she’d never experienced and she surely didn’t want to subject herself to it again. 

Though James seemed to be ignoring the two of them, Olivia could tell by the slight shift in his posture that he had registered her reaction. She wasn’t sure if he had taken it negatively or positively, however.

“I’m going to have you take him down to see George to finish this up,” Martin said. “That was M I was on the phone with when you came in, something’s come up and I need to go meet with him and a few others.”

Olivia stood and James got up and opened the door for her.

“After that,” Martin continued as he walked out with them. “Take him down to see Q.”

Olivia gave him a questioning look.

“James knows,” he said.

They parted, Olivia giving James a sidelong glance as they returned to the lift.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“I have a chip in my arm,” he explained once they entered the lift.

“A chip?” she asked.

“Yes, a computer chip so I can be tracked,” he said, pulling back his sleeve and showing her a small scar she’d noticed when they’d been in her flat.

“Who would put a chip in you?” she asked.

When she looked up at him, he was giving her a meaningful look.

“Oh, my,” she replied, turning back to the lift doors as the elevator dinged to indicate their arrival.

James followed her out and down the hall to George’s office. When they arrived, the secretary looked up.

“Mr. Mansfield is expecting you, Agent Hardy,” she said. “Go right in.”

Olivia nodded and thanked the woman and turned toward the door. She was about to turn the knob and push it open when she sensed that James was no longer behind her.

Turning to look back at him, she found he was still standing in the middle of the office, but he’d gone quite pale.

“James, are you alright?” she asked and walked back to him.

He nodded, hesitantly.

“Sure,” he said, his voice oddly quiet.

She considered a moment how to ask what she wanted in front of the secretary.

“Are you remembering something?” she asked.

James took a deep breath.

“Oh, yeah,” he said.

He nodded at her and something in his eyes, a flash of fear she thought, worried her but then the door opened behind her and she heard George’s voice.

“Everything alright, Liv?” she heard him say.

James nodded and Olivia turned back to George.

“I think so,” she said, looking back to make sure James was following her this time.

As they entered the office, George held the door for them and indicated the chairs by his desk. Once he shut the door, he whirled around and gave Olivia a huge smile.

“Oh, you were marvellous, Liv,” he said, gleefully.

She knew he was talking about Bonn.

“You know, there is a promotion due now,” he continued as he sat behind his desk. 

“Martin mentioned something,” she mumbled.

George sat back and examined her for a moment.

“I know,” he said. “A desk job really isn’t what you’d like, but, well, I’d much rather you behind a desk than a double-0 as we used to imagine.”

She glanced at James quickly to see if he had a reaction, knowing what he knew about her. George knew certain things, but not the real reason she was so averse to guns. But James’ face had returned to that nearly neutral double-0 look he’d had earlier.

“You know what Martin thinks,” he said.

Olivia nodded slowly, slightly embarrassed because now she knew Martin’s dreams of her sitting in M’s chair were not just dreams.

“Why so modest, now?” George asked.

That question seemed to get James’ attention and he moved in his seat to turn toward to her.

George looked between the two of them for a moment before narrowing his eyes at James.

“It’s not due to this bloke, is it?” George asked, his voice sounding more dangerous than she’d heard in a long time.

Olivia shook her head.

“It’s just been a long assignment, George,” she explained.

He considered her for another moment, then nodded his head.

“I imagine it has, Liv,” he said.

He opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a large manila envelope.

“I have all your documents and paperwork you’ll need here, Bond,” he told James. “Or, should I say, ‘Smythe?’”

He handed the envelope to James who began to draw the items out to examine them. There was the standard government issued ID, a passport, a deed in the name of James Smythe to a house in Ipswich.

“The house is nice,” he said. “A really large garden out back.”

James nodded, then pulled out something that surprised Olivia, an MI6 ID.

“Martin brought him on board?” she asked.

“Just for surveillance,” James interjected.

Olivia didn’t know what to think. She’d thought that today would be the last time she saw James and now she learned he’d be working for Six.

George cleared his throat nervously, then took a deep breath.

“Look, Bond,” he said. “I know you’re a lot older than me.”

Olivia watched as James blinked at Martin several times, fighting his incredulity.

“But I’ve known Liv for a long time,” he continued, heedlessly. “I’m also married, so I know a thing or two about how to work a relationship.”

Now Olivia turned to George with an open look of disbelief.

“You need to communicate, man,” he said. “When you’re given a job, particularly in this case, you really should tell her what’s going on.”

He shook his head.

“It only creates problems,” he told them.

He turned back to Olivia.

“What?” he asked when he saw her look.

“How on earth do you know?” she asked.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “James has been eyeing me since he walked into the office. I’m surprised he hasn’t positioned himself between us yet.”

Olivia looked at James who in turn gave her an innocent look. She narrowed her eyes and it faltered.

“And that’s the other thing, old boy,” George said. “You can’t be possessive with Olivia. She’s an independent woman who makes her own decisions.”

“God, George,” Olivia interrupted. “what are you, my father?”

George turned to her and gave her a fake patronizing look.

“I’m your brother,” he said.

James made a strangled sound and they both turned to him quickly. He was coughing and sputtering.

“Are you alright?” George asked, rising then walking over to his water cooler and filling a small cup.

He handed it to James who thanked him breathlessly and swallowed it down in one go.

“Sorry, about that,” he murmured.

They finished going over James’ information and Olivia took him down to see Q. In the lift she was silent, trying not to think of how she thought she would already have said goodbye if Martin had been able to do this. And also wondering if Martin would have her work with James once she was given her promotion. She wasn’t sure how either of them would feel about that.

When they reached Q department, they were forced to wait for the first time that day. It didn’t surprise Olivia. Even when Q knew in advance someone had an appointment, he often was so involved in his work that the people had to wait.

She and James sat on the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area, silent and each lost in their own thoughts. Finally, something occurred to Olivia.

“How did you get away from SMERSH in Paris?” she asked. “I thought they’d killed you.”

James shrugged. 

“I shot them,” he said.

Olivia leveled the best incredulous look she could then was surprised at the change in James’ demeanor. He looked briefly uneasy before clearing his throat and proceeding to recite to her all the details as if he was giving her a debrief.

“Well, thanks to your story, not one of them still considered me a threat by the time we’d walked out the door,” he said. “As they were taking me to the car, I pretended to stumble and was able to take a knife from one of the men. It was sheathed under his coat. I slid it into my sleeve quickly as they put me in the car.

“As we headed down the drive I was whimpering about how I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t know anything, and that I was only in love with you,” he said. “Then I proceeded to act as if I was going to be sick.”

He smirked slightly at that point, obviously proud of himself now that his trick had worked.

“They weren’t keen on me messing up the upholstery and stopped the car and ordered me out,” he continued. “I made a lot of retching noises and fell to my hands and knees.

“That enabled me to pull the knife out of my sleeve and when Orlov came up behind me, I turned quickly and gutted him while I grabbed his gun,” he explained. “I shot the driver and then the other guard because he seemed too dumbfounded to move.

“I put Orlov in the back seat and dragged the driver there as well, then I left,” he said. “I drove to a house about 30 km away where Martin had set up as he noticed the number of SMERSH members in the area increasing.”

Olivia stared at James, stunned by the manner of his speech. Even in her young form he was still apparently thinking of her as M.

“Well, that was a very good job, then, James,” she said.

The look on his face changed to a cross between pride at her comment and the heated desire she knew he was capable of. 

“Thank you, mmm.”

Whether he was going to accidentally call her “M” or “ma’am,” Olivia didn’t know. The moment reminded her that at some point in the future she would meet a much younger version of James and now that they had crossed every line that she would not normally cross with any agent she worked with, she wondered how that was going to affect her view of him.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James begins to realize that time travel is not nearly as romantic as all the books make it out to be.

They were barely inside Q’s office when Olivia was summoned out for a phone call from Martin. Q took James over to a very large scanner he’d had pulled into his office for this purpose.

“We nearly had to take the door off,” he told James as he placed him inside.

James eyed the machine suspiciously. It was half the size of an MRI machine. He’d never paid a lot of attention to the way tech had developed from the 70s up to his time, now he wondered if Q hadn’t inadvertently invented for MI6 purposes the medical machine that would one day be an important part of not just patient diagnosis but extensive research.

“We don’t have to put a coat on you because it’s not an x-ray,” he explained as he walked to the controls. “I’ll just scan the side where your arm is chipped.”

He pressed some buttons that were out of James’ line of sight.

“Unless there’s something else inside you that I should know about,” Q asked without looking up at James.

“No,” James replied.

Q nodded while he continued to work at his console.

“Now, once it starts, you can’t move your arm,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long, however.”

The machine shook slightly, startling James. He put both arms up to brace himself.

“It’s quite alright,” Q said. “Just hold your arm up like that until it’s done.”

James frowned but did as he was told. 

As he waited for the scan to complete, he watched Q. This Q James had never known. He’d heard of him, but possibly only because his death had made him as famous at MI6 as his work. He’d been Q for years before James was born, but had died the year before he was recruited. 

The question of whether to say anything was beginning to be a bit of a strain on James. He’d kept himself occupied with work in Paris and acclimating himself to the environment. He had avoided the news as much as he could, averting his eyes as he passed the stands and turning off the wireless when they stopped the music at the top of the hour.

But he’d slipped at the airport when they’d arrived in London and had caught a glimpse of Patty Hearst. That brought it all back. And he wondered how he could remain silent about the other things he knew. He couldn’t stop any bombings by the IRA. He couldn’t recall all of them from ‘75 or the next several years. He’d never paid attention to that sort of thing until he went to live with his aunt after his parents died. She’d had the news on as much as possible, giving her commentary to the wireless as it spewed the information into her flat.

But there were other things, including Q’s death that he could do something about. But, like his parents, it would be an even bigger interference than his presence was going to be.

James’ eyes drifted out the one way window of Q’s large office to Olivia who had finished on the phone and was having a serious conversation with a young man who looked very much like the Q he would know. He wondered vaguely, just to get his mind off his morbid thoughts, if his Q had ever had anything but a serious conversation.

Slowly, James became aware of Q who was studying him as if he was some sort of puzzle, or possibly some sort of threat. He stared back and Q turned back to his knobs and buttons.

“She’s not the sort of woman you can control,” Q said, and it sounded apropos of nothing, but James knew exactly what the man was saying.

“I know that,” he replied.

Q only hummed, obviously unconvinced, then looked at the screen where James’ scan was apparently progressing. After another minute, Q told him he could relax and exit the machine.

James shook his arm to get the blood flowing back to his fingers. He walked over to where Q was working but kept one eye on Olivia who was now on the phone again.

“So, I was wondering, what is it between her and George Mansfield?” James finally ventured.

There was a subtle shift, James could almost feel it in the air, and he knew he’d asked the wrong question.

The look Q gave him when he finally turned his eyes toward James was neutral enough, but only to the inexperienced. There was a warning for James, it caught him by surprise and he involuntarily shifted away from Q. Not much, but enough that Q looked satisfied that his look had made James nervous.

“That’s not a question you should ask around here,” he said. “Agent Hardy has a difficult enough time and inferring she’s having dalliances with her co-workers will not improve things.”

Q became silent and James assumed that was all he’d say. James shoved his hands into his pockets and began to look around the office.

“They came up through the ranks together,” Q continued suddenly. “They were often teamed up in the field and were rather formidable together.”

Q sighed dramatically as if to emphasize the horror of his next point.

“Then, George’s mother was dying and she *had* to see his wedding,” he told James. “So George married the girl he was dating at the time.”

Q continued working at his console muttering under his breath about how stupid parents can be and he was glad he never had children, or something along that line, before going on with his story.

“It didn’t take long for his new wife to demand he keep a more regular schedule and George dutifully took a desk job.”

Q spat those final words as he shook his head.

“Such a waste of talent,” he said. “That’s why agents shouldn’t marry.”

The door opened behind James and he watched Q’s face change rapidly from disgust to a pleasant smile.

“We’re all done, my dear,” he said. 

James was caught off-guard by the endearment after the way Q had defended Olivia so thoroughly, but as he watched the brief interaction between the two as Q complimented her on a job well done in Paris and Bonn, he realized that Q seemed to have a fatherly view of Olivia. James had never been one for family ties, even voluntary ones, but the idea that Olivia had another ally inside Six gave him more confidence in his decision to leave her.

She turned back to James with a look James knew to mean something hadn’t gone quite the way she’d planned and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it yet.

“Martin is meeting with M,” she told him. “He’s asked that I take you back to my flat and he’ll come for you around 1800.”

James nodded as if in agreement but he couldn’t think of anything worse that could happen right now. He’d already resigned himself to parting from her here at Six. Returning to the flat and leaving her there was going to be far more difficult. 

But wasn’t that his life? He thought, bitterly. Never getting what he wanted and losing it in the most painful way.

He chastised himself mentally. Olivia was alive and he was leaving her so she could go on to become his M. And there was nothing more important to him than that.

They walked silently together to the lift which opened as they walked toward it. A tall, slender man in his thirties walked toward them. 

“Ah, Miss Hardy,” he said. “I’ve heard great things about your skills coming out of the field.” 

He spoke in the most blatant bedroom voice James had ever heard in public.

James glanced at Olivia who was giving the man a smirk and a disinterested look.

“Hello, 007,” she said.

She folded her arms across her chest and cocked her head in that way James’ knew from the future meant she was already bored of the conversation but would entertain the man to amuse herself. It was the only thing that kept him grounded because meeting his predecessor, though by decades, was nearly as distressing as finally meeting George Mansfield.

The man leaned into Olivia’s space, but she didn’t move a centimeter. Instead, she stood her ground and cocked a derisive eyebrow at him. James kept his focus on Olivia for no other reason than at this moment she was acting so very much like his M and that was what he needed.

“Maybe we could get together some time and you could teach me the more intricate details of bomb defusing,” 007 practically purred as he leaned down toward Olivia.

She gave this 007 the cold look that James knew meant the man should back down immediately, but 007 either didn’t see or, likely, didn’t know the message.

In an instant so quick it nearly made James’ head spin, Olivia changed from cold to seductive, leaning into the man and raising her hand to drag a finger slowly from his collar bone to points further south.

“Well, 007,” she said, her voice far too much like James knew when she was truly aroused. 

The agent shivered visibly and James fought for his self-control as Olivia’s finger slowly made its way lower to 007’s abdomen, then finally stopping just at his belt.

“It involves a tiny pair of scissors and,” Olivia leaned in even closer now and whispered in a raspy, needy voice. “The snipping of some very small, very important wires.”

Her words had an immediate effect on 007. He straightened himself and stepped back from Olivia all in less than half a second. James thought he saw a certain amount of fear on the agent’s face.

“Well, that’s all very interesting, Miss Hardy,” he said with a slight cough. 

Then he gave an unsteady smile to Olivia and a slight nod to James and walked around them toward Q’s office.

If Olivia’s words had all the effect of a bucket of ice water on his predecessor, they had the effect of a match to gasoline on James. He tried in vain to conceal it but found, to his surprise, that whatever way he had kept all his feelings for her hidden in their future situation, he couldn’t do it here. Not now that they had crossed all those lines he’d only ever fantasized about crossing.

Olivia appeared oblivious to James’ open prurience and led him to the lift entering silently when the doors slid open.

“So that does it for you?” she asked, startling James.

“What?”

“You like a woman who can cut a man down to size,” she replied.

James looked down at her and found her smirking up at him. He averted his eyes quickly as the heat flushed through his body.

Olivia only hummed beside him and James was very glad the lobby was only the floor above them. The effects of her actions combined with being in this confined space were overloading his system. In the short span of seconds inside the lift, his mind had managed to conjure up an erotic scenario between him and Olivia in a stalled out elevator.

He grimaced as she chuckled at his discomfort.

“You are not helping the situation, ma’am,” he mumbled as the bell sounded.

Olivia grabbed him by the sleeve, laughing as she dragged him from the lift.

As they walked toward the exit for the car park, Olivia leaned into him and whispered hoarsely.

“The car, the lift, any other exotic locations you’d like to fuck me in?”

She laughed heartily as James released an audible groan. She was still laughing as they climbed into the car.

She was surely going to be the death of him, James thought as they pulled out of the garage and headed back to her flat.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”  
> ― Kahlil Gibran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have agonized over the ending of this chapter since Saturday. But I think I have settled on it the way I have it now. I wanted to post because I won't have time again to even write until Saturday again. School has started and I already have a ton of homework.

James stared out the living room window in Olivia’s flat until the sun hid itself behind the row of flats across the street, then he pulled shut the curtains. The weight of leaving had hung between them since they left Six. James felt himself tightly wound, a feeling he’d often had in her presence but never understood until now. When she’d kissed him after they’d arrived at her flat the other night, that coiled feeling sprang instantly in relief.

While James had found himself attracted to her from the beginning, the tension itself had grown over the years. Often James had misunderstood it. He’d frequently thought he was angry with her. On the occasions when he’d been able to acknowledge any sort of sexual feeling with it, he’d sought release with other women, only to find himself without any real relief, but unable to acknowledge the reason.

He glanced at the clock hanging over the kitchen sink.

“Martin usually on time?” he asked.

He shouldn’t have said anything, he knew. Breaking the silence between them at this point was dangerous. They hadn’t spoken since they’d entered the flat thirty minutes prior and for good reason.

Olivia only nodded, smart enough not to make a sound. But it was futile. James had already broken the unspoken promise between them.

She stood from her seat at the kitchen table to return to the ice box her mostly untouched glass of juice she’d poured when they’d arrived. She shut the door and leaned against it briefly before moving toward the living room, the anticipation of loss that hung in the room, making her movements slow. Whether she’d planned to sit on the loveseat or the chair, James would never know.

James could already feel the coil spring and in two long strides he was across the small room and Olivia was in his arms. He hadn’t time to even register if there was surprise or acceptance on her face as he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her voraciously. She responded and didn’t push him away, that was all that mattered to James.

He didn’t guide her to the bedroom, there wasn’t time. Martin would arrive in less than 45 minutes. Instead James pushed her up against the narrow dividing wall between the kitchen and the living room that had been built there to give it the appearance of two separate rooms.

The heat pouring off Olivia was the same as his own and she returned the fevered kisses and touches with equal intensity. Her hands ripped his shirt out of his pants and she pressed her palms against his back to pull him more tightly to her.

James wasted no time in pulling her skirt up to access her panties. His hands skimmed over her garters and he longed for the time to spend on her legs, but there was none. When he pressed his hand between her legs, he found her panties soaked already.

James used his other hand to begin to unbuckle his belt. Olivia seemed to be in agreement with the direction this was heading and pulled her hands out of his shirt to help James quickly open his pants. She pushed them down to his hips, then James pulled her up and held her against the wall. Recklessly, he pushed her panties aside and shoved himself inside her.

Of all the foolhardy, thoughtless, ill-advised, and imprudent decisions James had made in his life, this brief time with Olivia was the biggest disaster of them all. In 25 years time, a much younger version of himself was going to walk into that meeting with Olivia and now what would happen.

But none of that mattered to James at that moment. He silenced every rational thought from his mind as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent and letting it take control of him. She moaned as he thrust into her, occasionally whispering his name in encouraging tones. He had never needed anything or anyone so much as he needed this with her right now.

He lost himself in the rhythm and in alternate strokes saw her as she was now, then as she would be in the future. He needed both. He wanted both. _Her_ , she was all that mattered. How had he allowed it to become like this for him? He should have been more professional, but he would regret that tomorrow. Now, this act between them was all that mattered.

Slowly, he became aware that they were both holding on, neither wanting this to end. Both fully aware that when it did, that would be it and they would never feel this way again. Finally, the pressure became too much for James and he couldn’t stop. He pressed his face against her blouse and cried out loudly as he came and began to pulse into her. Olivia gave in a second later and James felt her nails dig into his neck as she bit against his shoulder in a vain attempt to keep from being too loud as her orgasm ripped through her.

He held her for minutes after as they shook against each other. James finally forced himself to release her and slowly lower her back to the ground. He couldn’t look at her, and knew she wouldn’t look at him either. If they looked at each other, he knew they’d both do something irrational like walk out that door and Six would never find them. That couldn’t happen. James had already run a great risk by taking liberties with Olivia like this. He couldn’t allow it to get any worse than it was already.

Reluctantly, and silently, he pulled away and pulled up his pants. Then he went into the bath to rinse off in the shower before Martin arrived.

When he returned to the living room, he found Olivia sitting in the armchair. She had changed out of her work clothes into a pair of house pants and a loose fitting shirt. James averted his eyes when they began to stray to her feet.

A knock at the door startled both of them. James looked at the clock again. 1800, on the dot. Damn, Martin.

* * *

James sat in the passenger seat of Martin’s car as they drove through the evening London traffic toward Ipswich. When Martin arrived, James had simply opened the door of the flat and walked out to join him. He shut it firmly behind him, a warning to both himself and Olivia.

Now, James stared out the windscreen as a light mist began to fall. It was his only comfort. He loved the rain. The dark skies and the umbrellas made it easier to hide. Right now all he wanted to do was hide.

He had made love to Olivia. Repeatedly. He had fulfilled fantasies he had never hoped to fulfill. And he felt more guilty than he had ever felt.

Maybe, just maybe, if his future young self wasn’t such an arse, it wouldn’t be as bad. What was she going to think of him, this man who had acted as if he loved her, when she got the news about that embassy? Or when they were on the phone and she was commanding him back, capture or kill order on him, and he flippantly told her no?

James felt himself sinking down into the seat as he did when he was a child, trying to disappear when he was in trouble.

He wondered, not for the first time, if the timeline wasn’t circular and she already knew. It would explain her anger and her disappointment in him. He wondered, if she did know as M, did she then doubt his feelings for her? Because he certainly didn’t spend a lot of time expressing them. The last words he’d said to her before he’d left for Paris made it clear what he thought of her decisions.

“Are you sure about this?”

Martin’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.

“Yes,” was all James could say.

Martin knew the reasons. He should understand this had to be done.

“Because, it just seems.”

Martin started to speak, but James interrupted.

“No,” he said. “I am not in her future, or her present.”

“How can you be sure?” Martin asked.

“Because I’ve seen her file,” James admitted, deciding that he’d cut down Martin’s argument quickly because it didn’t look like the man intended to give up easily.

“You’ve?” Martin sputtered. “How?”

“I hacked MI6’s system,” James explained.

“Christ, James,” Martin swore. “When?”

“After she was M, I wanted to know her name,” he told Martin.

“You looked at her entire file?” Martin asked, still shocked at this revelation.

“I looked at the part pertinent to me,” he said.

“And those are?”

“Her name, her address, her personal life,” he said, suddenly feeling very self-conscious over the matter.

“Why the hell would you have wanted those?” Martin asked indignantly.

James took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he let it out slowly. He found he couldn’t say the words. Not to Martin, not before he’d said them to her.

There was silence between them as Martin started to put the pieces together.

“Oh, god,” he exclaimed suddenly. “You’re in love with her. Not just now, when she’s M as well.”

James felt as if he had given up something to an enemy under torture. His stomach churned uneasily as the confines of the car shrank around him.

“Did you tell her?”

“No,” James said, shaking his head.

He and Olivia hadn’t actually talked much at all these last two days. They’d been too desperate to keep the rest of the world away as they cocooned themselves insider her flat, oblivious to anything but sex and sleep.

The rest of the long drive to Ipswich was silent, to James’ relief. Martin seemed smart enough to know that James wouldn’t say anything else and that nothing could be changed about the situation anyway.

James played a mental game he hadn’t played in months. He slowly went through all the checks he’d created to lose himself and be nothing more than an agent. He’d taught himself how to do this after Vesper’s death. He had never wanted to fall victim to anyone again.

He cringed internally as he thought of those days. M had been more kind to him than he’d deserved, he thought. Part of him had found solace in the gentleness of her voice over the line, but he couldn’t accept it. He had finally seen her point about trust. There would never be anyone he could trust. For some time after, he wouldn’t even trust her.

* * *

As he settled into the house in Ipswich, James kept to himself. Martin had him watching a couple who lived on the street he was living on. They were confirmed KGB, but M wanted to know exactly what they were doing in England and how many others were working directly with them.

Otherwise, James lived as a normal suburbanite. His cover was that of a copy-editor, allowing him to spend copious hours at home instead of commuting every day. He kept himself busy by working in the garden and by taking several walks throughout the city each day.

Only a few days after he’d arrived, he was walking down a market street when the scent of gardenia soap stopped him in his tracks. He looked around him, desperate to find her before remembering she wouldn’t even have the soap now. It had been left in Paris when SMERSH had kidnapped her and taken her to Bonn.

Walking a little further down the street, he found the source of the scent. There was a small boutique that sold soaps and perfumes. How he’d been able to pick out her scent among all the others stood out like a warning to James. He needed to shut that side of himself down completely. It didn’t matter how small this assignment seemed, there was always a danger that he could be discovered, and if they chose to interrogate him instead of kill him outright, he could not have her on his mind at any time.

Even as he thought that, he walked into the store to find what they might have.

* * *

Three days later, Olivia arrived home from work in the evening and found a note on her mailbox telling her the landlord was holding a package for her.

“Smells so lovely,” the woman smiled at her as Olivia took the box from the woman.

She didn’t have to look at the label to know it had come from Ipswich.

By the time she got into her flat, Olivia was shaking. Why had James sent her something? She thought there was an understanding that they would have no contact with each other. Being reminded of him was not something she wanted to continually go through.

She set the box on the table to open it. The scent began to permeate the flat as she reached inside and pulled out the note laid on top of the smaller wrapped packages of soap and shampoo.

“Olivia, I’m not a romantic anymore. Too many years as a number strips that away from you and leaves you with nothing but your skin and bones. I wish I could write poetry that could match your beauty and convey to you how much I love you, how much I always have. James.”

Olivia sat in the chair as her legs gave way to the sudden rush of emotions.

The gift itself had been rash, but she knew the note was even more impulsive. James had made as little reference to the future as possible when they were together. For him to say this much about his feelings both now and then was dangerous. It worried Olivia. She wondered if she’d be able to make the right decisions in the future knowing his feelings for her.

Mostly, though, she ached for him in a way that tore at her soul. How she would face him in the future knowing her own feelings for him seemed a task too daunting.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> M resumes her tale to Tanner (You didn't think she was telling him that other stuff, did you? :D)

“M?”

M turned her eyes back to Tanner then sighed and shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Tanner,” she said. “What were you saying?”

“If this is a bad time, I can come back,” he said. “These papers aren’t urgent.”

“No, no,” she said as she raised her hand to take the stack of papers from him. “Let’s get it done.”

Tanner handed her the pages, but M registered his hesitant manner.

“Do these only need my signature?” she asked.

She began to sign off on the pages and glanced up at Bill when he didn’t answer. His worried look perturbed her.

“I’m perfectly fine, Bill,” she said, returning to the pages.

“Then why haven’t you read any of the pages you’re signing?” he asked.

M paused mid-signature.

Taking a slow breath, she set down her pen and sat back in her chair.

“I’m sorry, Bill,” she said. “I shouldn’t be so distracted.”

“You have good reason to be,” he told her.

“It’s just,” she started, then stopped.

As she turned her chair so she could face the window, she considered what she could say to Bill. Walking into Six today had been difficult. Even though they were not in the same building she had taken James to all those years ago, there were enough similarities that she hadn’t been able to shake that day with him from her mind.

Of course, all of this was dredging up old memories of George, as well, and all that entailed. Work, which was usually a place of escape for her in times of trouble, seemed to be contributing to the pain instead.

“You can talk to me, if you like,” Bill offered. “I know it would be problematic to speak with anyone else.”

“Everyone else is gone now,” she said softly. “Except Q, but he never met James.”

They were silent as M stared out the window, trying not to lose herself in her past. Finally, she looked at Bill and saw he was serious about listening. She was forever telling her agents to talk with someone like a Six psychiatrist, she supposed she might do well to do the same.

“They sent James to Ipswich,” she told Bill. “He was going to work surveillance.”

“So he worked for Six?” Bill asked.

“Yes,” M nodded. “For a very brief time.”

She swallowed down the tightness that threatened to strangle her voice and forced herself to continue.

“After he left, I took some time off,” she said. “I had it due, since I had been working for nearly two years on the matter with Dubois and I needed a long break.”

* * *

They’d given Olivia a month. She packed and left the day after she’d received the package from James, leaving no information about where she was bound, only that she would check in once a week at the time she set with Martin.

She drove without destination. South, first, since that would take her to a ferry and across the channel, but as she approached, she didn’t feel much like returning to France and headed in a westerly direction. She drove until she needed to eat, then she drove until she needed to find a place to sleep. She stayed in hotels and boarding houses, wherever she found a room. But she only stayed the night.

For the first time in her life, Olivia found herself listless and without course. Since her parents’ deaths, she had kept focused on moving forward and leaving the pain behind. When Six recruited her from the Medieval and Foreign Languages department at Oxford where she was teaching and working on her PhD in ‘65, she hadn’t looked back. She threw herself into her work, the knowledge that she was protecting those around her finally giving her a sense of purpose.

Now, it was as if none of that mattered. Even the knowledge that she was surely to be M one day meant nothing to her. Under normal circumstances she would despise the way she was feeling, instead, she embraced it.

For three weeks she drove slowly up the Western coast of England, into Scotland, then back around the Eastern coast. She only deviated course when she realized it would take her through Ipswich. Then she turned back to the center of the country before turning south and heading back to London.

Normally, returning to London brought a great thrill to Olivia. She loved the city, she loved her job. Everything about her life had been good. Somehow, losing James made all of that seem secondary.

How she had become so attached to a man so quickly she didn’t know. She had spent the three weeks of holiday reasoning through her emotions and coming to the conclusion that she would never understand them. Now, instead of rested and refreshed from her time away, she felt exhausted and even slightly depressed. At times her body ached in ways she had never imagined possible.

Parking her car in the car park down the street from her flat, she trudged toward the building. Though it was an unusually sunny fall day, Olivia felt cold and gloomy. The only thing that brought her out of her morbid thoughts was the uneasy feeling she got the moment she walked into her flat.

She looked cautiously around the front room, not leaving the doorway. Someone had been there. There was something off, she knew, and she looked around, trying to figure out what it was.

“Ms. Hardy.”

The man’s voice behind her made her jump. But she instantly relaxed when she saw it was only her neighbor, Mr. Allen.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, haltingly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Allen,” she replied “I didn’t hear you in the hall.”

“I wanted to tell you that there was a man asking for you while you were away,” he stuttered.

Olivia felt her pulse quicken.

“It was about about a week ago, while Mrs. Williams was out at the grocer,” Mr. Allen continued. “He took the stairs, or else I’d have heard the lift, and was standing out here when I left my flat to go out to buy some cream.”

Olivia was almost afraid to ask him any questions. He must have thought the entire thing important to say this much to her.

“What did he look like?” she asked.

“Oh, he was about my height, thin, and had straight dark hair with a little grey,” Mr. Allen told her.

The fear in the pit of her stomach that had begun when she’d opened her door grew.

“Also, he was French,” he said.

Dubois. He’d been at her flat. What the hell was he doing out of prison? It had only been a little more than a month since she and James had captured him and the people from SMERSH in Bonn.

“Did he say anything else?” she asked.

“He just asked for you and for your boyfriend,” Mr. Allen answered. “I told him you were not here and asked if I could leave you a number.

“He asked how long you’d been gone and if the two of you had left together,” Mr. Allen informed her. “But I told him I really didn’t know.”

Olivia forced herself to think rationally. She hadn’t been for nearly a month, but her first instinct was at least not to panic.

“Is that all?” she asked.

Mr. Allen nodded.

“He left after that?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Allen said. “I saw him out myself.”

She didn’t tell him how foolish she thought that was. Dubois could have killed him. But she shook that extraneous thought from her mind.

“Thank you for letting me know, Mr. Allen,” she said.

“Will you be alright?” he asked.

She smiled reassuringly at him.

“I’m going to call a friend who is in law enforcement,” she said. “He can help me.”

Mr. Allen seemed satisfied with her answer and turned and headed to the lift.

Olivia turned back to her flat knowing now what was wrong. The shipping box that held the soaps James had sent her from Ipswich was not on her kitchen table where she’d left it. She took another few steps into the flat to see if it was anywhere and saw it had been tossed into the dustbin.

Walking back out of the flat and locking the door behind her, Olivia returned to the street to call Martin from a payphone.

“Oh, thank god you’re back,” Martin said breathlessly when he came on the line.

“Look Martin, Dubois’ been in my flat,” she said.

Martin was silent for a moment and Olivia thought that maybe the call had been cut off.

“Shit, that,” he finally spoke, then paused before continuing.

“God, this is not good,” he said. “Look, I’m sending George right now to pick you up. Where are you?”

“I’m at the corner phone box near my flat,” Olivia told him.

“Stay back from the street,” he ordered.

Then he hung up and Olivia followed suit then moved to the shadow of a storefront not far from the box.

What had happened in the last week? She’d checked in six days ago and had planned to call when she’d returned today.

George arrived 40 minutes later and Olivia quickly got into the passenger seat.

“What the hell happened, George?” she asked, though she thought she might already know the answer.

“I really shouldn’t say,” he said. “Martin can tell you.”

Olivia broke in.

“Cut the bullshit, George,” Olivia said, trying to keep her voice even. “Dubois has James, doesn’t he?”

George sighed.

“Now that we know Dubois is definitely in London and was at your flat, that is what we think,” George said.

“And before you knew that?” she pressed.

“James missed his check in three days ago,” George said. “He never misses his check in.

“I have him flagged for immediate notification at Martin’s request,” George continued. “So I sent a man around to check on him.”

George sighed.

“The back door was ajar and inside the flat there were signs of a struggle,” George said. “We thought it was the KGB people he was watching.”

George let that thought hang because it no longer mattered what they had thought.

“Did you interrogate them?” Olivia asked.

George nodded grimly.

Olivia could imagine Martin’s frustration now. Their investigation into whatever these KGB was here for was blown and now, regardless of what happened to those agents, the Soviets would start over in another place, possibly, and MI6 would have no knowledge of it.

“Has there been any contact from whoever took him?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Liv,” Martin said as he shook his head.

They were silent the rest of the drive. What more was there to say? James was missing, taken violently to some place they couldn’t find. No contact from the people who had taken them gave them no direction.

Olivia felt the car closing in on her and found it increasingly difficult to breathe. She cracked the window and stared blindly out at the sunny day as they drove toward headquarters.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No news is not necessarily good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, yay. A new chapter. Gods it's been insane around here. And, this story has just taken on a life of its own and threatens me with eternal chapters. So, enjoy this one because with the way things are going this week, it's going to be another long spate before I can post again.

“What the hell is going on, Martin.”

Olivia had gone straight to Martin’s office, ignored his secretary, and thrown open the door, not caring who might be in the office. Even when she’d registered that the someone was M, she didn’t hesitate.

Martin looked at M uneasily though Olivia was sure it was because he didn’t want to be the person to explain how Dubois, who should be rotting in a German prison, was out and wandering the streets of London.

M took the hint and started in.

“Now, Miss Hardy,” he said.

Martin flinched, knowing that was the exact wrong way to start with Olivia.

“Don’t you “Miss Hardy’ me,” she cut him off. “There is no good reason for Dubois to be out of prison.”

“I can assure you that it was not our decision,” M answered. “The West German government traded him for three agents being held by the Stassi.”

“Whatever for?” Olivia was incredulous. “He just tried to blow up one of their government buildings.”

“They didn’t see him as a threat,” M explained.

Olivia felt herself grow cold. She narrowed her eyes at M and in the corner of her eye saw Martin avert his eyes from the conversation.

“Not a threat?”

M seemed surprised at Olivia’s change in composure.

“Well, no,” M replied hesitantly. “He’s a French nobleman and the French vouched for him.”

Olivia held his gaze until he finally returned one with equal certainty.

“What did you advise?” She asked.

“I told them if they didn’t want him, we were interested,” he replied.

Olivia still wasn’t satisfied.

“How long have you known?” She asked.

M’s left eye twitched.

“The trade happened nearly four weeks ago,” he admitted.

“And how have we been monitoring him?”

The further their conversation went, the more cold and calm Olivia became. She had never been a very emotional person. She was like her mother, her father had always told her. Olivia could remember as far back as the Blitz, though she was not yet five years old. Her mother had always remained calm under extreme pressure. She had tried to mimic her mother, she assumed.

M looked uncomfortable. Olivia doubted he much liked being on the receiving end of an interrogation he would normally give.

“Look here, young lady,” he said and stood. “I do not answer to you. And you would do well to control your attitude with me.”

He pushed past her when Olivia stood her ground, then he left the office without a word.

Olivia glared hotly at the far wall of Martin’s office.

“It won’t do to piss him off, Olivia,” Martin said.

“What have we been doing?” she asked, without taking the seat Martin was pointing to.

Martin sighed.

“He was in East Germany, and not of too great an importance to the British government anymore,” he told her.

Olivia groaned and finally sat down.

“M hasn’t told anyone about James,” Martin explained.

“That he’s missing?” Olivia asked.

“No, that he’s evidence that Dubois will create a time machine at some point in the future,” Martin said. “So, you can see why the Home Office thinks he’s just some quack who is spouting off nonsense”

Olivia gave Martin a doubtful look. When he nodded in reply, she knew he found that excuse as implausible as she had.

“Now, I suppose, the real question is who gave Dubois my address,” Olivia asked, suddenly shifting the conversation.

“Indeed,” he replied. “Of course, it put me in a bit of a spot because now M knows I had Logistics arrange for James’ identity papers.”

“He also knows you were right about the problem and that you weren’t just being paranoid,” Olivia smirked.

Martin sighed, but Olivia could tell by his look that he was not sympathetic to her point.

“Being M is not what you seem to think it is, Olivia,” Martin told her. “Of course, in principal you can’t trust anyone, but in practice, you have no choice but to trust unless there is very good evidence against it. How would you get anything done if you were openly suspicious of everyone around you?”

Olivia nodded, conceding his point.

“What are we doing about it, though?” she asked.

“M is handling that,” was all he would tell her.

There was silence between them as Olivia began the process of sorting all the information. Suddenly, she realized something.

“If we have a mole who can access my information,” she said. “Why didn’t they just look for James in the system?”

“They might not have known his real name,” Martin replied. “Or it’s possible he’s not in the system yet.”

Olivia gave him a questioning look.

“Once I learned that Dubois might be traded, which was the day James was here,” he explained. “I told George to hold off the main paperwork and put him under an entirely different alias for check-in purposes.”

Martin grimaced and huffed out a breath in frustration before continuing.

“I couldn’t do the same for you because that would have had to go through Personnel,” he explained.

Olivia knew that he was worried by some irregularities he’d seen in the department and had expressed his concerns to M. She hoped M would take Martin seriously on the issue now. But that was not going to be their concern.

“George said that there’s been no contact from the kidnappers,” Olivia said.

Martin shook his head.

“Though, now that we know it is possibly Dubois, I expect we’ll hear from them soon,” he said.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“He probably has someone watching you,” Martin explained.

“What are you thinking?” Olivia asked.

Martin leaned back in his chair.

“I think this has SMERSH’s prints all over it,” he explained. “Dubois might be a little upset about you being a spy, but I think SMERSH is just using his interest in you.”

“He can be their fall guy,” Olivia agreed.

Martin nodded.

“I expect they have members working with him here in London who are about mid-level,” Martin continued. “They are good, but still disposable enough that if they get caught they can claim just to have been working for Dubois.”

Olivia was silent as she considered what might happen next.

“So it’s just a waiting game now,” she finally sighed.

“I’m afraid so, Olivia,” he replied. “Why don’t you get some rest? You can use George’s office and no one will bother you there.”

Olivia all but rolled her eyes at Martin for his idea. But he only raised his brows and indicated the door with his head.

“I’ll call you as soon as we hear something,” he assured her as she left his office.

* * *

George shut the door and locked it when Olivia arrived. He had already acquired a pillow and a blanket from some unknown source.

“You don’t have to baby me,” Olivia said. “I’m not that fragile.”

“No, but you also aren’t super human,” he said. “You know to rest when you can.”

“I know,” she admitted as she sat on George’s office sofa. “Martin said he expects to hear from them soon.”

“Yes, and once you have something to work on, we all know you’ll forget to eat and sleep,” George admonished.

George turned the desk light on and then turned off the overhead light.

Olivia made herself comfortable on the sofa as George settled into work at his desk. She took comfort in the familiar feel of being with George. It was just like when they would take turns at the watch or at surveillance. She’d always felt the most at ease with him. She knew he was someone she could trust not just to do his work, but who would respect her and give credit where it was due when it was time.

Even though it was still early in the afternoon, Olivia was surprised to find herself drifting to sleep rather quickly. It was a good thing, she thought vaguely as sleep overtook her. She had a feeling that there wouldn’t be much time for sleep once she awoke.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been going back and forth between stories. I am kinda stuck on the drabble at the moment, some major decisions to make, so I forced Olivia and George to get this chapter out. I hope you enjoy it. :)

Olivia rested with her eyes shut as she blissfully rocked along with the boat. They were anchored offshore and she was lounging on a chair enjoying the sun. She heard James laugh and opened her eyes. He looked older than she remembered and his hair was shorter than he’d let it grow in Paris, closer to what it had been when she’d first met him. He was looking at something behind her. Olivia turned to see what was going on.

“Oh, god, Olivia,” George called.

Too late. She landed with a thud on the floor of the office.

“Are you alright, Liv?” he asked as he came around his desk.

“Yeah,” Olivia sighed pushing herself up. “Just a bit woozy.”

George held out his hand to her and she pulled herself up with his help.

“No news?” she asked.

“No, I’m sorry,” he replied.

“Well, it’s only been a short while since I came into the office,” Olivia said as she stifled a yawn.

“You’ve been asleep for three hours,” he said.

“Three?” Olivia was astonished. “I wasn’t aware I was so tired.”

“I’ll get you some water," George told her and walked to the water cooler.

He returned and handed her the cup.

“Do you need something to eat?”

Olivia shook her head.

“I don’t really feel like eating much right now.”

“You didn’t rest much on your holiday, did you?” George asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Olivia replied.

She leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes, the memory of her dream still fresh. It was so real, she could have sworn she smelled the sea air.

“He’s had quite an affect on you, hasn’t he?” George asked quietly.

Olivia nodded.

“I’m afraid it’s more than that,” she told him.

She shook her head, upset that she couldn’t say more to George. But when she looked up at him, he was smiling.

“Never thought I’d get to see you fall so deeply in love,” he said.

“Oh, god, George,” she complained. “You’re such a hopeless romantic.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked.

“Yes,” Olivia sighed.

George took the cup from her.

“Let’s go up and see how Martin’s doing,” he suggested. “We could probably both do with a walk.”

Olivia stood and found she had to hold out a hand to George as the room seemed to tilt under her feet.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked.

“Lunch, I think,” she told him.

“We should get you something to eat,” George said as they walked toward the door.

“Let’s go see Martin first, then we can, alright?”

George didn’t look convinced but Olivia ignored him and walked out of the office and toward the lift.

When the doors of the lift opened to Martin’s floor, Olivia headed directly for the office. Martin’s secretary met them to redirect them to the larger conference room down the hall. Inside, Martin had set up a war room inside, complete with a table map of London.

“Olivia, we haven’t heard anything,” Martin said immediately. “At least not from SMERSH or Dubois.”

“But you obviously have something,” she replied, leaning over the table to look at the markup.

“Yes,” he said. “After you left the office I decided to re-interview our Soviet guests and they were very forthcoming.”

“Really?” Olivia was surprised.

“Yes, ever since the KGB turned on SMERSH,” Martin began. “Well, as you know, we thought SMERSH were all but wiped out, or pushed completely underground.”

“And now that they’ve surfaced, the Soviets aren’t happy?” George asked.

“Yes, and the rest we need to keep down low,” Martin continued. “When the KGB verifies the Stasi were working with SMERSH, I doubt the Eastern Bloc is going to be a safe place for any of them.”

“So what are the flags?” Olivia redirected Martin’s attention to the map laid out on the table.

“Those are the locations we were given of formerly known SMERSH properties,” Martin said.

“Blimey, there’s quite a few,” George commented with a low whistle to emphasize his surprise.

“Yes,” Martin agreed. “We’re checking into ownership but so far they all appeared to be owned by legitimate corporations.”

“This is going to be huge, then,” Olivia said.

Martin nodded.

“But that’s not our concern,” he reminded her. “Right now I have people on the street trying to get eyes on the occupants.”

“Are we sure they brought James back to London?” George asked.

“Not a hundred percent, but these were the places the Soviet’s knew of, and since we now know that Dubois was definitely in London and we suspect that SMERSH has Olivia’s flat under surveillance, it really was the best place to start.”

“Did the Soviets take the ticket back to Moscow?” Olivia asked, though she felt she knew the answer.

“No, apparently they’ve decided that England is more their type of country,” Martin said.

“Ah, defecting to avoid Siberia, torture, death, or all of the above,” George commented.

“Never seen that before,” Olivia complained.

Olivia felt Martin’s eyes on her and looked up at him.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, looking for all the world like a disapproving father.

Olivia rolled her eyes, but George interjected before she could speak.

“She told me she hasn’t eaten since lunch,” George informed Martin.

Olivia turned and leveled a glare at him, but she knew that look was useless on George. He knew her too well.

“Go eat and then we can discuss more,” Martin said. “I’ll send someone for you if anything happens.”

Olivia nodded reluctantly. Now that there was actual information, she didn’t want to be away. She wanted her eyes on the entire situation so she could make sure nothing was missed.

George nudged her arm and she turned to leave.

“Oh, and bring me back a sandwich or something,” Martin told them.

“How long has it been since you ate?” George asked, giving Martin a smirk.

“I don’t answer to you,” Martin said as he turned away.

Olivia chuckled as she pushed open the door.

When they entered the lift, Olivia wrinkled her nose. It seemed more stuffy in the elevator than usual. She was probably more sensitive because she was still slightly annoyed that Martin insisted she go eat. They could have sent George or even Martin’s secretary. It made her feel as if he wanted her out of the loop.

When the doors opened at the ground floor, Olivia could smell the faint odor of the cafeteria. Her stomach grumbled and she had to acknowledge that she really should eat something, even if she didn’t feel much like it.

She and George walked on in silence as Olivia tried to keep her focus on what she’d seen in the office and try to reason through the scenarios they might face. The closer they drew to the cafeteria, the less her mind could focus. She had skipped meals before but apparently today had been too much. Of course, she hadn’t felt much like eating on her holiday. The odd depressed feelings she had over the idea of never seeing James again, or at least not for another few decades, seemed to have destroyed any appetite she might have had.

They turned down the hall and saw the double doors leading into the cafeteria. The odor was stronger now and Olivia’s stomach did a little flip. They were nearly there when two men exited, opening the doors and allowing the odors to flood the hallway. Olivia’s stomach lurched and it was all she could do to keep the few contents down before she ran into the women’s room she had just passed.

There was no time for her to be embarrassed and worry if anyone was in the loo with her. She threw open the first stall door and began to vomit until she dry-heaved. It felt like a good ten minutes before she could stop, though she thought it must be less. She was shaking and cursing her horrible luck at picking up some stomach bug now. How was she going to participate in the search for James?

When she felt she could walk steadily, she turned to rinse her face and mouth in the sink. She turned on the tap and began to run the cool water over her hands and wrists to calm herself.

“You alright?” George’s voice startled her and she jumped.

“Christ, George, what the hell are you doing in here?” she asked.

“It’s OK,” he said. “I bolted the door.”

Olivia turned her head and gave him an incredulous look, even as she put her hands back under the water.

“Rinse your mouth,” he told her.

“I’m so glad I have you to tell me that,” she groused, but she did so.

“I have some mouthwash in my office if you’d like,” he said.

Olivia shook her head and began to rinse her face. George pulled some paper towels out of the box on the wall and handed them to her. The small amount of makeup she’d had on was now a complete loss. But she couldn’t be bothered at the moment. She was too worried about Martin socking her away in medical for the rest of the investigation. She didn’t care how sick she was, she could not stand to be left out of this.

George was silent as Olivia tried to calm her body. Vomiting when she was sick usually made her feel better, but this time it hadn’t helped at all. She must have that 24-hour one that people talked about. She’d never had it but she’d heard it was awful, much worse than the regular flu.

George handed her towels as she needed then took them over to the trash receptacle when she was done with them. She was glad he’d locked them in here. She would hate for anyone to see her like this.

“You know my sister’s having a baby,” George commented.

Olivia assumed he was trying to distract her so she played along.

“Yes, she’s due soon, isn’t she?”

“Yes, mid-December,” he said. “Christmas baby.”

He chuckled.

“My sister thinks it’s going to be so sweet,” he continued. “But she is going to be so exhausted she probably won’t even remember the holiday.”

Olivia smiled along with him.

“I learned a lot from her about pregnancy, you know,” he said.

“Really?” Olivia said, finding that it was rather nice to have something else to think about.

“Yes, for instance, you know the whole morning sickness name is often a misnomer,” he told her.

“No, I didn’t,” Olivia replied and splashed more water on her face.

George handed her another towel before he continued.

“Yes, it can strike at any time,” he said. “Some women have it in the morning, but others can have it all day.”

Olivia hummed in reply.

“And there can be any number of triggers for the nausea,” he went on. “But strong odors seems to be the main one.”

“I had no idea,” Olivia said.

George was silent after that, but he wet some towels and squeezed out the water to lay on the back of her neck.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

Olivia rested on her elbows against the sink, her head down almost to the tap, her wrists under the water, and George applying pressure to the cools paper towels on her neck. Slowly, her mind began to settle down and focus again. She began to consider the events of the day, driving into London, discovering Dubois had been at her flat, learning that James was missing.

She looked up suddenly, wide eyed and stared at George in the mirror.

The look he gave her confirmed the fear that had just flashed through her mind.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “No. No. No.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, looky here, two chapters in one weekend. I must really like you guys. :D

Olivia closed her eyes as she tried to get her bearings. There was no way to make her current situation more complicated than this.

“Is the baby James’s?” George’s whispered question broke through her thoughts.

She looked back up at his reflection in the mirror and saw his concern.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “I was worried because you’re always so careful.”

His voice trailed off and Olivia knew he was thinking of an incident years earlier when she’d had a scare after she’d been undercover.

“The birth control pills got left in Paris, I’m afraid,” she told him.

“Why didn’t you use a condom?” George asked.

Olivia smirked at George. He’d never been anything but frank with her, and she always appreciated it.

“We ran out,” she chuckled, thinking George would find it as funny as she did at this moment.

Instead, his face grew hard.

“Did he force you?” he asked.

Olivia turned to face him.

“No, we just,” she started to explain, but then realized it would be a little more information than George really needed.

“It was just in the heat of the moment,” she said.

“That’s very unlike you, Liv,” he said.

She nodded in acknowledgement. When she’d been alone with James something had happened. She’d given herself over to him in ways she never had to another lover. 

“I suppose love makes us do unusual things,” George said.

Olivia leaned back against the sink and took a deep breath. This really was the worst possible scenario. Even if they got James back. That thought hit her hard and shuddered. 

“We’ll find him,” George said as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Then I’m going to force him to make an honest woman of you.”

Olivia slapped his hands off her and rolled her eyes as George laughed.

“Really, though,” he said. “You’ll have to make a decision about this.”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t even know if James wants to have a child.”

“Guess he should have thought of that before he was so irresponsible,” George mumbled.

“Oh, George, please,” Olivia chastised.

“I’m serious,” he replied. “He knew he was leaving you and he is old enough to know how babies come about.”

“It was just once,” Olivia said.

“Well that is the most stupid thing I think I’ve ever heard you say, Liv,” George told her. “It only takes once.”

“I’m aware of that, George, dammit,” she said. “I just wasn’t thinking, alright?”

They were silent a moment before George replied.

“As long as you’re sure it was consensual,” he said.

Olivia nodded, then sighed.

“What the hell am I going to do?” she asked. “I’ve never even wanted a child.”

“You don’t have to have it,” George said.

“I know,” Olivia replied. “But if James wants to keep it.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” George said.

Olivia looked sharply up at him. George was usually very honest, at least with people in his personal life.

“Look, what I’m saying is that he didn’t want to be around you,” George reminded her. “He’s the one who left.”

“There were extenuating circumstances,” Olivia told him.

“It doesn’t matter, the point is that he wasn’t here, and he didn’t plan on being here, so your decision has nothing to do with him,” George told her.

Olivia couldn’t tell George that, as far as things went, James shouldn’t be anywhere now, at least not at his age. 

“But you love him,” George interrupted her thoughts. “And if you want to keep the child because of that, I will do everything I can to help you.”

Something about George’s words caused Olivia’s eyes to begin to tear as the emotions of the situation finally took over her.

“George, I,” she tried to speak but found her words cut off as she began to sob uncontrollably.

George reached for her and pulled her into his arms.

Olivia felt her face flush red in embarrassment. She’d never felt so overcome by emotion for no reason like this.

“Another thing I learned from my sister is that pregnancy causes women to act very un-Britishly,” George chuckled.

“Oh, god, George, that was awful,” she said, but she began to laugh through her tears.

When she pulled away, George dried her eyes with another paper towel.

“I hope I’m not like this the whole pregnancy,” she said. 

“I’m sure you’ll be just fine,” he assured her. “And if you need a good cry, you are welcome to come and lock yourself in my office.”

Olivia nodded and smiled up at him.

“You really are the best friend,” she told him, not for the first time.

He smiled back at her then straightened himself.

“Martin’s going to wonder where we got ourselves to,” he said. “I’ll go get the food and then we can head back upstairs.”

He turned to leave but Olivia caught his arm.

“Please, don’t tell Martin about this,” she said.

“Liv,” he said, his voice a warning.

“He won’t let me stay on this case,” she pleaded.

“But, Liv, that’s for your own safety,” he reminded her.

“George, I can’t be out of this,” she said. 

Geroge closed his eyes and let out a defeated sigh.

“Alright,” he said. “Just make sure you get to medical the moment this is done.”

Olivia nodded and promised. As she watched George peek out the door to see if it was safe, she started to worry again about what she was going to do.

The implications of having James’ baby were far more enormous than she could explain to George, at the same time, she could not imagine herself not trying to carry it to term. 

Ten years earlier, she’d had a scare after an assignment. Then, there had been no question in her mind what she’d do. The baby would have belonged to one of the most heinous people she’d met at that time and there was no way she could have had it.

Fortunately, she had just been very late. The doctor had told her it was from the stress of the assignment. She and George had gone out to celebrate that night and Olivia was sure it was only his strict rule of not getting involved with co-workers that had kept her from trying to get him into bed. That was for the best, she realized now. 

She shook her thoughts of the past from her head and reapplied some lipstick and rouge hoping it would draw away from how pale she thought she looked. Then she walked back out into the hallway to wait for George.

What was she going to do, she pondered. She loved James, and she knew that he loved her, but he shouldn’t be here, and they certainly shouldn’t have a child together. How was this going to affect the future? It seemed very important to James that she become M some day. She couldn’t imagine, if things remained as they were now, that anyone was going to promote her at all in her condition. It would be an uphill battle for Martin to move her up through Six. A pregnant woman was a liability, she supposed. It was ridiculous, but that’s how most people thought.

“Better?” George asked behind her.

She turned and smiled at him.

“I think so,” she said.

“I got you some tea and some toast,” he nodded his head at the food on the corner of the tray he held.

“Thanks, that sounds very good right now,” she replied.

They walked toward the lift then got in to return to Martin.

“I’m serious about what I said earlier,” George told her when the doors slid shut.

“I know you are, George,” she replied. “And I’m grateful.”

When the doors slid open, both shoved aside the thoughts of their conversation, though. Olivia would think about all the potential problems of having a child with a man from a different time after they found that man.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters?!? Wow!!! Don't get used to it. ;) This is just a short thing but it ends better where it is. Enjoy.

Olivia sat on the sofa in the safe house a few blocks from Six and listened as George turned the key in the door.

“Oh, you’re up already,” he said in surprise.

“Yes,” Olivia replied quietly.

“Did you take the test?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I was waiting for you,” she said.

He stared at her for a moment before replying.

“Well, I’m not going to hold the bloody stick for you,” he said, trying to lighten the situation.

Olivia put a strained smile on her face.

“Have you already, uh, gone?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Alright, then, up and at ‘em,” he admonished.

Olivia got up and headed for the bathroom, dreading what she knew the test would tell her. It had been over four weeks since that afternoon she and James had essentially fucked each other into oblivion. She could not recall ever wanting anyone the way she wanted him. Even now, she found the ache for him to be almost unbearable when she was alone.

Now, she was a little over two weeks late for her period. The test might show a false negative, but this was only a formality that George had insisted on.

He’d set her up in a safe house since they knew SMERSH was watching for her. He’d driven her over, late the night before when even Martin couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. When he brought her in the flat, he’d handed her a brown paper grocer bag.

_“I went out and bought you a pregnancy test earlier,” he said. “Take it so we know for sure one way or the other, in case anything happens, alright?”_

_He’d held her again, but far more tightly than he had earlier._

_“It’s going to be alright,” he said. “We’ll find him, and then you two can work this out.”_

Olivia followed the instructions, then she opened the door and returned to find George pacing in the living room.

“I’m not having the baby today,” she smirked “There’s no reason to pace yet.”

“Right,” he said, then sat down stiffly on the sofa.

Olivia sat next to him and was surprised when he took his hand in hers.

“I meant what I said, Liv,” he reminded her.

“I know, George,” she said.

Then she lay her head against his shoulder because she thought that might help him. She wasn’t sure why he was so upset over this matter. It would really have no bearing on him except for his offer to help.

They sat quietly together and OIivia watched the second hand on her watch go round until it had finally been long enough. They stood together, George not dropping her hand, and headed to the bathroom.

If she didn’t feel so overwhelmed, Olivia might have joked that it was more like they were heading toward an execution than to simply look at a stick to see what it said about her possible pregnancy.

When they arrived, George finally released her and she stepped in to have a look.

She sighed sadly when she saw the positive marks on the stick.

“It’ll be alright,” George said behind her. “No matter what happens now, what decision you make, I will be here for you.”

Olivia nodded and forced herself to swallow down the emotions. She had to get back to Six and see how things were progressing, if at all.

George waited as she dressed. He had some toast and tea for her when she walked out of the room. He drank some tea with her while he waited for her to eat. Neither of them spoke, and that was fine with Olivia. She needed to work through this, but she couldn’t very well do it until they found James.

George washed the dishes while Olivia brushed her teeth. She gagged on the toothpaste and began to vomit into the toilet. George came in and quietly helped her clean up.

When they got into his car, he turned to her and again assured her, “It’s going to be alright, Liv.”

As they drove into Six, she forced herself to believe him.  
\--------

“But,” Bill interjected, then stopped up short.

M had been waiting for him to say something for several minutes of her tale now and was surprised he had remained quiet.

“You and,” he stopped again.

“But, you,” Bill shook his head and stopped trying to say anything.

“You really didn’t read the rest of my file, did you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t see a reason to.”

“Well, it’s for the best,” she said sadly.

“What happened?” he asked.

“That, I’m afraid, is a very long and confusing story,” she said.

She was surprised when Bill smiled.

“Well, actually, you’re quite a good storyteller so I look forward to it,” he said.

“You could just look,” she told him.

“I don’t think you really want me to,” he said. “At least not yet.”

M shook her head.

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t think I want to face the end right now.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter because the next couple of chapters will get long and they go better together than with this one, or some such nonsense that went through my head during insomnia. ;)

Olivia was a patient person, or so she liked to think. She had to be to do the sort of work she did. Before she had gone full time as a field agent she had been in MI6’s version of a bomb squad. She’d diffused bombs, and she’d made and planted bombs. None of those things were suited for an impatient person.

It had been 48 hours since she’d returned to London and learned James had been taken and her patience was wearing thin. Knowing that with each passing hour the chances of finding him alive faded was a fact she wished she could ignore.

George was right. She couldn’t have an abortion because she loved James and really didn't want to lose this part of him. But neither could she give the child up for adoption. She would want James’ child with her, not raised by another woman and man, regardless of how well she could vet them.

She couldn’t recall the last time her life had been such a mess and so far out of her control. She was usually so much more level-headed. No wonder George thought James had coerced her.

Martin sighed as he pushed the photos he’d been examining away from him, bringing Olivia back to the task at hand. He sat across the table from her as the two went over the most recent photos that had been brought back from the surveillance on the London buildings.

“Nothing,” he said and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

They had both been looking over all the surveillance for hours now, and there had been no sign of anyone related to the case. Olivia had memorized all the faces of Six’s list of known SMERSH operatives in London earlier but had not seen one in any of the photos. She also had not come across any of the SMERSH operatives she’d seen in Paris.

Olivia sat back in her chair and took a small sip of her tea. She felt Martin eyeing her so she looked up.

“All you’ve eaten today is plain toast, and tea,” he said.

“I’m not really hungry,” she replied.

“You’re going to have to have something more to keep your strength up, Olivia,” he admonished.

“I’ll have something later,” Olivia lied.

They were interrupted, before Martin could say more, by a messenger bringing in the latest developed photos from the lab. Olivia took half the photos and Martin the other half and they began to examine them.

No spy film Olivia had seen in the cinema had ever come close to conveying the tedium of the actual work. They always made it look glamorous and exciting. In reality, she thought as she set aside another useless photo, spy work was about as exciting as watching someone sleep.

When she’d been recruited, the first test she’d had turned out to be how long she could sit in a room and stare out a window. An oversimplification, but essentially what it felt like. She’d had to write down every detail she could catch and then submit it, typed, to her instructor. That had taken her three days. If she’d been hoping for excitement, she probably would have walked out the door half way through the second day.

She sighed dejectedly when she and Martin exchanged their piles to check them over.

“None of that, Olivia,” he said. “You know you can’t give up hope this early or there’s no point in staying in the business.”

She looked up sharply at him.

“I know this is personal for you,” he said. “But you have to keep your head about you. You’re a smart woman, but you need to make sure you are looking at this like an agent, not a lover.”

Olivia took a deep breath and nodded. She was certainly losing that focus. Returning to her stack of photographs she tried to push aside her feelings and her fears.

Half-way through the next stack, the phone rang. Martin’s assistant answered it, then handed the handset to Martin.

“It’s Agent Powell,” she said.

Martin nodded as he took it from her.

“Go ahead, Alex,” he said into the handset.

Olivia watched Martin and saw a glimmer of hope flash across his face.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

He waited and nodded as he listened to the man at the other end of the line.

“Alright, bring the film in right away so we can process it,” Martin said. “Canvas the area and get as much information about the entries and exits and we’ll look at the floor plans here.”

He hung up the phone, then lifted the handset again to dial.

“They have a positive ID on Dubois at one of the locations,” he told Olivia as he dialed the phone.

“Banyan,” he said into the phone. “I need you to send four more people to, um.”

He stood and carried the phone to the table with the map then read off the address of the location Dubois had been seen at.

Olivia’s heart was in her throat as she listened. When Martin hung up he looked back at her.

“Well, go down and wait,” he said, a slight smile on his face.

She didn’t need to be told twice and she walked quickly out of the room to head to the photo lab. It would take some time, but she didn’t want to have to wait for someone to deliver them upstairs.

**~~One hour later~~**

“Yes, Martin, it’s him,” Olivia said into the phone.

London mid-day traffic had been terrible and it had taken nearly an hour for the film to arrive from the site. Olivia had just been handed the print and confirmed it was Dubois immediately.

“Alright, I have a team on standby,” he replied.

Olivia held her breath.

“Get your arse down to tac if you want to go,” Martin barked into the phone.

Olivia hung up and did as Martin had told her, finally feeling a sense of hope after two days of nothing. They'd find James and then the two of them would discuss the baby. She ignored the logical part of her mind she normally listened to that was trying to remind her that if James didn't belong in her time, a child of his certainly didn't either.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for mentions of severe torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the happy ending you were looking for. But, take heart, it's not actually the ending. In all honesty, this story doesn't seem to have an ending. Maybe if someone dies, but neither has offered themselves up as a sacrificial lamb, thus far. ;)

Waiting for nightfall for a surprise attack was always problematic. Yes, there was cover of darkness, but there was also the fact that the enemy was more on alert at night and that might make things more difficult.

It was a measure of how important M deemed James that Olivia found herself among more than 30 other agents as they waited for their signal to move on the building. At least they’d have the surprise of the numbers. SMERSH could not possibly know how valuable was the information James inadvertently held in his head. They would not expect Six to mobilize such a brigade.

When the signal went out, Olivia held back with the small team she was supported by. But as soon as all three entrances were breached, they surged forward quickly. And, amidst the fighting and gunfire throughout the building, she and her team headed quickly down the halls toward the center of the building where the surveillance team thought SMERSH might be holding James.

The resistance from SMERSH was not as great as the fire power Six had sent and Olivia’s team was able to make it to the center of the building in no time. The door was locked to the room they wanted to check so Olivia’s lead shot the bolt off and they pushed their way in.

Upon entering, the team found a large, but vacant room with several closed doors exiting the room. Splitting the small group into two teams, they made their way slowly around the room checking each door. They were each locked and the movement was slow as they attempted to get into each.

When Olivia and her teammate got to the second to last door on their side, she found it unlocked. They cautiously opened the door and pulled back to wait for any response. Greeted by silence, Olivia carefully peeked inside.

She forced herself to respond to what she saw in as professional a manner as she could.

“Call for medical,” she ordered her teammate as she walked toward James.

It was obvious even from the other side of the room that he’d been tortured. His naked body slumped forward in a high-back chair, held up only by the bindings around his arms and chest. His feet were in a pan of water and there was a car battery with wires dangling from it on a table nearby.

“Hardy,” an agent called. “Medical is on standby but they can’t get in because we are having trouble securing the building.”

Olivia nodded.

“Reid and Campbell, go back and get a stretcher and you other two guard each side of the room,” Olivia said without turning away from James.

Olivia had seen a great deal of horror in her life, but what had been done to James seemed one of the worst. His skin was rubbed raw and open where the ropes were bound. The closer she got, the more things she noticed, like how pale his skin was and how gaunt his eyes and cheeks were. She could see his ribs where before his chest had been nothing but hard muscle. They mustn't have fed him once in the week they'd had him.

Kneeling next to him, she carefully removed his feet from the pan and shoved the pan to the side. His feet were swollen and obviously infected, the skin around the nails his captors had left was cracked open.

“James,” she called softly while attempting to keep her emotions in check.

She looked up at his face to see if there was any response.

She grimaced at the thought of the pain he was going to suffer when she cut him loose from the chair. She wasn't sure she should do it at all without anyone from medical coming in to help.

M had argued against her request for a combat trained medical team saying he was already going to face hell for treading on Five’s territory. Olivia got the message loud and clear. It was important to M that no one get James’ secrets, but it was perfectly fine if he died somewhere in between.

Forcing herself to focus, Olivia touched her fingers to his neck to try to feel his pulse. He was alive, she knew, but she wasn’t sure how his pulse was. If it was thready, she wouldn’t want to cut him loose. They’d have to take him on the chair or his heart might stop.

She was surprised to find it pulsing fairly strongly. But she thought of the scars on his groin and knew he was someone who could endure and survive a great physical punishment.

“James,” she said again.

He moaned and Olivia breathed a brief sigh of relief.

“James, you hear me?” she asked.

He moaned again.

“I can’t cut you loose until the stretcher gets here,” she explained, not knowing if he really heard her or not.

He moaned again and Olivia allowed herself a bitter smile and rested a hand on his knee.

When he moaned again, Olivia began to realize he wasn’t really moaning at all.

“James?” she whispered and leaned in closely.

What sounded like a moan suddenly sounded like he was saying ‘M.’

“Missed you,” he said.

“I missed you, too,” she said, unsure if he was referring to their current predicament, or not.

“Get Dubois?” he asked.

His eyes were still closed and his voice was raspy. She tried not to think about why.

“Yes,” she lied, afraid if she told him the truth it would cause him to panic.

He sighed, obviously relieved.

“I worried,” he said. “I couldn’t get back to you. Was afraid he’d found you, again.”

“I’m alright, James,” she said.

He was quiet for a moment and Olivia listened to the noises outside the room. There was still some fighting going on. She couldn’t hear the radio chatter because she was not to turn hers on unless absolutely necessary. M and Martin were afraid that James might slip up and say something in front of another agent.

“I didn’t tell them anything, M,” he said. “They asked things I didn’t know about anyway.”

“You did fine, James,” she said. “You did just fine. I knew I could trust you.”

James body slowly relaxed then and his head lolled further forward.

“All I ever wanted,” he mumbled.

A long breath came out of him. Olivia knew that breath from experience.

“NO!” she yelled.

She reached around to the ropes and cut them with her knife. James’s body fell against hers and she quickly laid him out on the ground. She began immediately giving him chest compressions.

The door flew open on the side and she hoped to hell it was her team. She couldn’t look up from her work for fear she’d lose him if she did.

A single shot from the other side of the room, then another, almost distracted her, but she forced herself to shut out the commotion around her and simply hunch down lower.

By the time the brief gunfire died down, she had James on his side and he was breathing again. She looked up and saw the two remaining agents. One had been shot, it looked like in the arm. The other was tending to him. This left the doors completely unguarded but there was nothing they could do about that. There were two dead men by the door that had flown open who appeared to be members of SMERSH from their dress.

Olivia sighed and went back to trying to rouse James.

This time when he spoke, she was relieved that he used her name.

“Olivia?” he rasped.

He peered up at her, but she could tell his eyes were unable to focus.

She smiled at him and took his hand in hers.

“We’re waiting for a stretcher,” she told him.

To her surprise, he tried to push himself up.

“No,” she ordered. “Just rest there.”

“The floor’s damn cold,” he said.

Olivia removed her jacket and wrapped his upper body in it.

“That doesn’t help my arse,” he said.

“Christ, James,” Olivia hissed. “Now is not the time for jokes.”

He looked in her direction and gave her a goofy grin. She shook her head disapprovingly and checked his pulse again.

“I’d really hoped the next time you saw me naked would be far more romantic,” he said.

She ignored him and counted the beats.

“This really isn’t as good as the last time,” he said, trying to get her attention.

Olivia rolled her eyes but decided if it distracted him, she’d play along.

“Isn’t it?” she asked innocently.

“Hardly,” he replied, the words coming out between gasps for air. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

He gave her his best attempt at a lascivious grin considering how much pain he must be in.

“I hope for your sake that I’m real and not an illusion, James,” she told him.

“Oh, I know you’re real,” he told her. “I can smell you.”

Olivia closed her eyes at the onslaught of the memory of how this whole problem started.

“They told me how they found me,” he said morosely.

Olivia opened her eyes again. James stared up at her, his eyes trying to focus, but unable.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve compromised you.”

“Oh, James,” she said, allowing as much affection into her voice as she could afford with two agents not far away. “You have no idea.”

She glanced at her watch and then impatiently back at the door. The team should have been back, she thought.

“You need to get out, Olivia,” he said.

“We all do,” she reminded him.

He shook his head.

“No, it’s you they want,” he said. “You need to go. Take your men and leave.”

“Not without you,” she admonished.

“I don’t belong here, anyway,” he reminded her. “Just go.”

“I won’t leave you,” she said.

“It’s better,” he said.

“Don’t you dare say that,” she growled.

That only drew a resigned shake of his head.

“I can’t leave you now,” she said. “I would never have, but now it’s even more important.”

“The sex was that good?” he smirked.

“It was very productive,” she said, placing a heavy emphasis on the last word.

He stared up at her, obviously trying to decipher her meaning. She watched as it slowly dawned on him until his face looked like her reflection in the lavatory mirror only a few days earlier.

“No,” he said. “No. No. No.”

She smirked at his reply. Exactly like her own, she thought.

He tried to push himself up again but Olivia shushed him and forced him to lay back down. She was relieved he had that much energy, but she could see in his eyes that the pain was more than he was letting on.

“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” he said quietly.

She shifted around so he could rest his head on her lap now that he seemed to be breathing better and she didn’t think she was going to perform CPR on him at any second.

“It’s alright, James,” she said. “We’ll work it out.”

She rested her hand on his head, afraid that doing more than that might cause him more pain. She made a mental catalogue of the injuries she'd noted for the medical team should they arrive as she waited to hear someone at the door.. 

Olivia worried about the difficulty they were having. There must have been more men here than they’d previously thought. They could have been hiding, it was a rather large building. Six's assumptions must have been flawed, not the first time, she admitted. But that she and her team had entered so easily, and were having such a difficult time getting out, brought an urgency to James’ warning.

They had to get out of this, but as it stood now, Olivia couldn’t bring herself to leave without James.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just couldn't help myself. Here's another chapter. :) Enjoy. Haha. You know you won't. OK, now you know.

Olivia heard one of the agents speaking into his walkie-talkie and waited for him to report. The one who hadn’t been shot, Harrison, walked over to her.

“Agent Hardy,” he said. “I think we need to seek another way out.”

Olivia nodded. She’d been thinking the same. But with one man shot and James in his condition, it was going to be difficult.

“I think that far door is the one that’s closest to the back exit,” Harrison continued. “I can get you and Miller out and come back for James.”

“Get Miller out and try to get back,” Olivia said.

“I don’t think,” he started to argue.

“M specifically told me to stay with him and not leave him alone with anyone,” she reminded him.

He sighed, but didn’t argue.

“Go,” she said.

If they could get some cover out the back exit, they both should be fine.

Harrison looked back once before exiting the south door, then Olivia was alone with James.

“I forgot to tell you something,” James said.

His voice was a harsh whisper and Olivia leaned closer to hear him.

“I love you,” he said.

She pressed a gentle kiss to his brow, noting that he was far warmer than earlier.

“James,” she replied. “You’ve already told me many times.”

“I did?”

“Yes,” she said. “You wrote it in your note, and you told me the first time we made love.”

“I only remember the pleasure’” he said.

When she looked down at him, she expected to see him smirking. But he had a sad look on his face.

“I really fucked this up,” he told her. “I should never have gone with you to your flat. I should have never made love to you.”

As much as Olivia wanted to assure him, she knew he was right.

“I’m as much to blame,” she said. “I knew it was a mistake but I couldn’t stop myself. I’ve never given myself over to something like that so completely.”

They were silent after that. James rested his head in Oliva’s lap, the rest of his body was just as limp on the concrete floor. Olivia began to gently card her fingers through his hair. Now that they were alone, she didn’t see that it should matter.

Shortly, she heard someone approaching the door she’d entered the room by. She pulled her gun out and held her breath. It wasn’t point blank range, but she could make due if she had to.

The door finally opened to reveal Dubois who entered the room calmly, as if there wasn’t a gun fight going on just down the hall.

“Leonore, my dear,” he said with an oily voice. “Why ever would you risk yourself for this man?”

Olivia focused on listening for any noise at the south door her agents had exited by. She knew that Dubois must only be a distraction. He couldn’t possibly be in charge of this operation.

“It doesn’t matter,” he shook his head. “Soon we will be on our way to the east and we will be together.”

“What could you possibly want with me, now, Dubois?” She asked.

He leered at her but she knew it had nothing to do with sex.

“My friends would like to know all the secrets in that pretty little head of yours,” he admitted. “And when they are done with you, what’s left will be mine.”

Olivia kept her face calm even as her skin crawled at the thought.

“I do hope they keep you in better condition than your poor lover,” he continued. “It’s really too bad, he was a handsome thing before.”

Dubois took a step toward them and Olivia raised her hand to fire her gun. She hit him in the shoulder and he fell back to the ground and began screaming in pain.

“Shit, did you shoot him?”

She turned to see James trying to push himself up again.

“Lay down before you hurt yourself further,” she barked the order at him and was unsurprised when he immediately complied.

She had decided she was going to finish Dubois off and had moved to do just that when Harrison came back through the south door.

He ran to them.

“Let’s get him between us’” he said.

They started to maneuver James so they could make a “chair” from their arms but James smacked them away and tried to get up.

He was to his knees and Olivia was ordering him to lay back down when his eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

Olivia didn’t have time to look to see what he’d seen. He twisted his body and pushed her to the ground just as a shot rang out. Her head hit the concrete with a hard thud and she saw stars.

The gunfire that followed sounded like pop guns in her head. It seemed like an hour, but was only seconds, before her vision and hearing began to clear. By then, whoever had shot at them was down, shot by Harrison, and James was lying on top of her, gasping for breath.

“Bloody hell!”

Harrison reached for James to pull him off Olivia. She noticed her shirt felt very wet and she wondered if the pan of water hadn’t spilled on her.

She tried to get up to assess the situation but the room began to swim and her stomach lurched. She leaned away from James and vomited.

Harrison was yelling into his handset. Olivia found herself desperate to get closer to James. He hadn’t moved since Harrison had pulled him off her.

Suddenly, both doors to the room flew open and there was a flurry of feet. Olivia reached out a hand to James knowing this was the last time she’d touch him. If SMERSH planned to do what Dubois said, James and Harrison would be dead, and she’d wish she was. The fear of what would happen to their child suddenly overwhelmed her and she couldn’t stop the tears.

Then the faces were over her. They were a blur through her tears and the pain. She couldn’t say anything. If she started now, she might never stop. She thought of James and how much torture he’d endured as an agent and hoped she could be just as brave.

They put her on a stretcher and carried her away. Though she strained to look, she couldn’t see James through the people who surrounded him. She hoped they would at least be merciful to him and end it quickly now that they had no need for him.

Olivia’d had a lot of experience with suffering, but she had never felt as hopeless through it all as she did right now. She closed her eyes as she was carried away from James and willed herself to fall asleep.

————

“Wait! What?”

M was startled out of her memory by Tanner’s surprise.

“You don’t mean, uh,” he stopped.

“What I mean is, James isn’t _really_ dead, is he?” he said. “I mean, he had to get away, right?”

M’s look turned to concern.

“And somehow he must have come for you’” Tanner continued.

M quirked an eyebrow at him.

“You think me a damsel in distress, Tanner?”

Bill immediately realized the error in his comment.

“Uh, no, I just, uh.”

“Tanner, you know, it’s been a stressful week,” M interrupted. “Maybe I should let you get back to work and we can finish this part of the story later.”

“No, no,” Tanner assured her as he settled back into his seat. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

M wasn’t convinced.

“Yes, please, continue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was a shameless play on Princess Bride there at the end.
> 
> Sorry it's kinda abrupt but if I continued it would be super long and I hate to post super long chapters. So, maybe next weekend. :)


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter I've been working on between breaks in studying.

Olivia was roused by the antiseptic smell and the steady beeping of a heart monitor. She was aware of a warm hand on hers. She forced her eyes open and saw George sitting next to her, watching her wake.

"Hey, sleepyhead," he smiled at her.

She hoped she smiled back but she wasn't sure her face had even moved.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Don't know," she said, not feeling like elaborating on her discomfort.

"I had to tell them about the baby," George said.

"That's alright," she replied.

She really hadn't thought about that in the commotion before she blacked out, but it was better for the baby if George had. There were precautions the medical team would have to take. And she was just relieved to be here and not a prisoner of SMERSH.

"The baby is doing fine," he said.

Olivia found the strength to move her free hand to her belly. George's free hand joined hers and she smiled weakly up at him.

He had told her he'd do whatever he could to help her. And just knowing she wasn't going to have to go through this alone was enough.

"You, however, had quite the knock on your head," George told her.

She didn't want to ask about James. She'd known there was no way he could have made it out of this alive. The torture itself had nearly killed him. If she hadn't been there to resuscitate him--but that didn't matter now.

"You have a concussion," George continued. "But there was no swelling at all so it looks like you should make a good recovery."

Olivia closed her eyes, just these few minutes awake took all her energy. She heard the door open and someone walk in. Then there was a woman's voice talking about vitals and Olivia drifted back to sleep.

She was roused by the same voice loudly telling her she had to wake up. She didn't want to wake up. She was tired, her head hurt and her body hurt. Mostly, though, she didn't want to think about how she had lost James. How would she ever stand to wait to see him again in the future? And once she did see him, would she want to change things between them? She had his child, wouldn't that make some sort of difference? She would probably want to tell him about their child, but how would she explain it?

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, hoping that would get the nurse to stop yelling at her.

"That's better," the woman said.

She began to ask her all the usual questions Olivia had heard before in hospital and Olivia tried to answer them as well as she could. When the nurse was satisfied, she left with the promise that the doctor would be in soon to examine her.

"What are they going to do with James?" she forced herself to ask before she was too afraid to talk about it again.

"That depends on if he wakes up," George said grimly.

Olivia stared at him, processing his words.

He smiled at her.

"Yes, believe it or not, he is still alive," George told her.

Olivia felt a tear escape before she could prevent it. The relief she felt was palpable.

"He's quite a strong man," George said, reaching up to wipe the tear from her cheek. "Do you recall anything from the warehouse?"

Olivia thought, which made her head hurt worse. She really did just want to fall asleep but needed to know about James' condition.

"James was tortured," she replied.

She tried to remain professional in her recounting of events, but her voice cracked more than once and she had to stop when she told George about how James had stopped breathing and she'd had to revive him.

George, oddly, smiled at her then.

"That's all he ever wanted, eh?" he said. "Just your trust?"

"That's what he said."

Olivia took as deep a breath as she could and tried to push aside her feelings from that moment.

"I don't understand why that was the thing that was so important to him," she told George.

"I do," George said. "You aren't a person who gives her trust easily."

He leaned forward against her bed and took both her hand in his.

"I remember when I knew you trusted me," he said. "That was a wonderful moment."

"What are you talking about?" Olivia asked.

"It was during that disastrous assignment in Romania," he said. "Pearson and I were there. We had separate cars so we might be able to split their efforts to find us. But when we got you out, you followed me to mine."

He looked down at their joined hands and shook his head.

"There hadn't been much time for thought or discussion about it," George continued. "You didn't even ask me which direction I intended to head to assess which would be the better route."

He looked back up at her.

"By then I already knew you well enough that I understood what you were saying without you saying it," he said.

Olivia nodded at him. She remembered that. She had been so relieved that George was there. If it had been Pearson and someone else, she might have hesitated and that would have been fatal for all of them. But she knew George and he was the only person she completely trusted inside Six.

"He's a good man, Liv," George said. "And from what Harrison told me, he must love you quite a lot."

"What?"

Olivia was unsure what he meant.

"Dubois told us that you shot him and then Harrison came into the room, right?" George said.

Olivia thought that sounded as if it was in the correct order of things so she nodded.

"Well, Harrison said that when the two of you were trying to help James out that a SMERSH agent came into the room, and that when James saw him he threw himself between you and the enemy agent," George told her. "From what condition James was in even before being shot twice, I'd say it was a very deep emotion that propelled him."

Olivia looked up at George in shock.

"Shot?" she gasped. "Twice?"

George's look turned grim again as he nodded.

"I'm afraid so, Liv," he told her. "Once in the shoulder, from the back, but that one went through him, yet somehow missed you. And once in the lower back, near his spine."

Olivia closed her eyes. How James could even still be alive after all of that was a surprise to her. But then she recalled the scars on his groin from his torture. How he had lived through something so brutal had surprised her.

"He is strong," Olivia agreed with George's earlier comment. "I just hope that's enough."


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I do when I procrastinate...

Two days after she woke, Olivia was deemed well enough to be helped into a wheel chair and taken to see James. George left her alone after he wheeled her into James' room. She thought that James looked better than he did the last time she had seen him. Of course, he had died the last time she saw him.

Still, though he was intubated, getting oxygen through a nasal cannula, and had all manner of wires and tubes flowing into and out of him, his color was good and his heartbeat was strong. 

The doctor had told her that they planned to begin to ease off the heavier medications that were keeping James in a state of medically induced coma. After that they could extubate him and see how he would do on his own. That James was still alive was a good sign, he'd said. But it was still a wait and see process.

His hand was warm when she reached over and took it in hers. There were a million things she wanted to say to him, but she only sat in silence and watched him breathe. It was an odd way to find comfort.

Olivia traced the outline of James' hand and tried not to think long term and how what they had done might affect things. She was usually better at that. Focusing on the long term, the big picture, had always helped her through whatever she was facing. But this time it seemed too much. 

"I don't know what to do," she whispered. 

James, of course, could not reply. The silence became stifling and her mind began conjure up all sorts of terrible outcomes. For a moment it made her want to flee. But only a moment. She stood her ground mentally as she always did and she slowly felt her strength begin to return to her.

George came back for her an hour after he'd left. She didn't protest when he insisted she go back to her own room to rest and have some lunch. 

"Don't you need to go back to work?" Olivia finally asked as they finished their food.

"I am working," he said.

Olivia raised an eyebrow.

"I should have known Martin didn't say anything," he said with a sigh. 

He didn't look like he wanted to be the one to tell her.

"There's a nurse sitting at the central area outside James' room," he said. "She looks as if she is just doing paperwork."

Olivia nodded, there were a few nurses in the area when they went by.

"Well, she's actually James' guard," George told her.

Olivia gave George a worried look.

"Martin believes the breach into Six is big enough to warrant a guard on both James and you," he said. 

"Why not a normal guard?" she asked.

"Well, M is afraid that if we use a normal guard that whoever is involved will know we are on to them," George said.

Olivia pondered that.

"Are we?" she asked.

"We are currently going through Personnel carefully," he said. "But nothing has thrown up any flags."

"But it's not just Personnel," Olivia said.

George shook his head.

"It will take time," he said. "Martin is still working out the details with M."

Olivia lay back in the bed and began to think. After a minute George interrupted her. 

"Don't even think about it," George said. "After this last time, if you dare try anything like that, M will have you sacked despite Martin's defense of you. In fact, I'm not sure Martin would be willing to defend you."

Olivia felt duly chastised. Martin had said nothing about her actions when he came to see her the previous day. She assumed he was waiting until she was feeling better.

"I know it's difficult for you to sideline yourself, Liv," George continued. "But you have to now."

Olivia nodded. This was just one of the many reasons she had never wanted children. 

"So you're to be my guard?" Olivia gave George a smirk.

"It is my cross to bear, yes," he returned his own to her, but with enough spark in his eye that Olivia laughed.

"Martin wasn't thinking clearly on that, was he?"

George laughed at her comment.

"Maybe he thinks I've toned down since taking the desk job," he told her.

"That will be the day," Olivia said.

She stifled a yawn and George gave her a look that told her she knew she should be sleeping.

"Alright," she said. "I'll rest now."

* * *

In two more days, Olivia was declared well enough to be moved to a safe house. She regretted the loss of her flat and her independence. 

George stayed with her most days, and there was a replacement at nights. That guard stayed in the living room while Olivia slept. Martin was particular about whom he sent. Except one, they were all men who had no problem with her being in the business. She wasn't friendly with that man though so they just remained silent around each other. She supposed that not every man who opposed her presence at Six was a mole for SMERSH. A good thing, she told George one day.

"We'd lose most of the company," she laughed.

George took Olivia to visit James each day. The doctors began to wean him from his medication and, finally, two weeks after the rescue, she walked into the room and found him awake and sitting almost upright in his bed.

He smiled at her and Olivia surprised both of them by turning around and leaving the room. George was at the nurse's station outside the door and he walked over to her when she froze outside the door.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"He's awake," she breathed out.

"That's wonderful," George exclaimed.

"What if he forgot?" she asked, an odd feeling of panic rising in her throat.

"Forgot what?" George asked. "You?"

"No," she said. "The baby."

"Did you ask him?" George asked.

"No, I just turned around and left when he looked at me," Olivia confessed.

George's eyebrows went up and his eyes widened.

"I just," Olivia started, but she didn't know how to finish.

Facing down an enemy with a gun was easy. Facing James, not knowing how he was going to feel about their child, was more terrifying as far as she was concerned.

"Do you want me to go talk to him?" George asked.

Olivia let his words sink in for a moment before she realized what he was asking.

"Absolutely not," she replied.

She scowled up at him, but George started to chuckle. She rolled her eyes in reply, then took a deep breath and turned back to return to James's room.

When she pushed open the door, James gave her an anxious look.

"Sorry about that," she said, uncharacteristically shy. "I wasn't expecting you to be awake."

He only nodded.

"I'm, uh, glad you are awake," she said.

"You sure?" he asked, and she thought she heard bitterness.

"What? Of course, I am," she protested. "I just, well."

She sighed and finally moved closer to him, but not quite to the bed.

"I'm just nervous," she admitted.

He looked as surprised as George had moments earlier.

"I remember something about being shocked at certain news you gave me," he said.

Olivia averted her eyes, suddenly more afraid than she had been earlier.

"What do you want to do about this?" he asked.

She shrugged, even though she knew exactly what she was planning to do.

"It's late 1975," James said. "I suppose I'll need to marry you, at least if I want you to be my M someday."

She looked back up at him and saw a smirk on his face.

"You aren't bothered by that?" she asked, ignoring his comment about her future.

"Should I be?" he asked.

"Well, this is a huge decision," she said. "It's not something to just jump into without giving it some thought."

James chuckled.

"You'll find that I'm not really a person who gives a lot of thought to decisions," he said.

"Really?" she asked.

She felt goose pimples rise on her skin as she realized she didn't know much about James. She knew what he was like in the field but nothing of his personality day to day.

"I thought you would have figured that out  considering how this entire thing happened," he said, looking pointedly at her midsection.

She looked down involuntarily, suddenly nervous that she might already be showing.

"I'm rather impulsive, Olivia," he said.

She sighed and slowly turned her head to look back up at him. He had that anxious look again, as if he thought this information would change things irreparably between them.

"I'm not, usually," she told him.

They stared at each other, Olivia still several feet away.

Finally, James took a deep, but shaky, breath and spoke.

"I guess opposites attract is true in our case," he said.

She only stared back at him, not sure how well she could go along with that. 

"What I mean," he continued when it became obvious she wasn't going to reply. "Is that you see someone who has some quality you don't have and maybe that's what you actually like, you know, to compliment what you are lacking."

Olivia raised one brow at him.

"That sounds like something out of Good Housekeeping," she said, before wondering if the magazine even existed in the future.

He gave her a slight smile.

"I read broadly," he said.

Olivia chuckled.

"I'm afraid too, Olivia," he said. "So if you don't want to do this, if you decide that you don't want the baby, I understand."

He looked as if he was putting on a brave face.

"Did you ever want children?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Me either," she said. "But."

She stopped herself before blurting out what she wanted to say. She didn't want to manipulate him. She would keep the baby regardless of what James wanted to do, but she wouldn't force him to marry her.

"But what?" James asked.

Olivia gave him an assessing look, long enough that James began to look uncomfortable and turned his eyes away from her.

"What do _you_ want, James?" she asked.

She watched his reaction carefully. The muscle in his left cheek spasmed briefly before he swallowed slowly. She had his answer before he spoke the words.

"I do want the child," he said.

Then continued, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke. 

"But I understand if you don't want to marry me, and I will respect your decision if you don't want the child yourself."

He wouldn't look up at her and she knew that was partly because of the emotion of the moment and partly because she had somehow invoked whatever protocols were already between them when she would be his boss in the future.

"I want the child, too," she said quietly.

James looked up at her. For the first time since she met him she thought she saw hope in his eyes.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year. :)

James lay in his bed, listening to the beeps of the heart monitor that was still attached. He’d made quick progress and the doctor was hopeful. But he still hadn’t been on his feet. There was a bullet lodged near his spine that the doctors left because it was too dangerous. He could wiggle his toes, but he wasn’t sure if he could put any weight on his legs.

He was having visions of watching his child grow from a wheelchair and he was not happy about those thoughts. If he couldn't help with the childcare, Olivia couldn't work the way she needed to. He had to make sure Olivia moved up in Six so she could become his M some day. Too much was riding on her promotion, not the least of which was whether or not he would return after what happened with Quantum.

He couldn’t tell Olivia, but he had only come back for her. He also couldn’t tell her why. He couldn’t tell her about White, or the attempt on her life that made him realize exactly what she meant to him.

He looked out the window at the darkening sky. She’d been to visit earlier, still on medical leave herself. Though she acted as if there was more to it. He hadn’t pressed because there were things she couldn’t tell him and he was going to have to get used to that.

The real problem he was having was that he was feeling useless. When he’d been recovering from his torture from Le Chiffe, he’d been young and vain and had preened at Vesper’s attentions.

Olivia was nothing like Vesper. That wasn’t bad, but she was very much like his M sometimes and that made him feel like he should be doing something to please her. Instead, all he did was lay around all day, hoping they’d get him up and about soon.

The door opened and the sounds of nurses talking outside his room temporarily drowned out the beeping. James turned, expecting to see the nurse, but was surprised to see Olivia.

She gave him a tight smile as she walked toward him. That was nothing unusual now. She seemed more nervous around him. He recalled many of their arguments at Six about how hot-headed and impulsive he was. She didn’t like it then, and it appeared that her dislike for that sort of behavior had a long history.

“How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Better now,” he told her.

“Oh, did they say they were going to get you up?” She asked.

He was surprised she would so badly misinterpret what he'd said.

“No,” he told her. “I was talking about seeing you.”

“Oh,” she said.

She seemed rather distracted so James ventured to ask.

“What’s happened?” He asked.

She shook her head.

"Does that mean nothing, or you don't want to tell me?" he asked.

"Nothing's happened," she said.

"Then why are you here?" he asked.

"You don't want me here?" she asked.

"Why are you being so difficult?" he asked.

That earned him a glare.

"You want a compliant woman?" she asked, jutting out her chin.

James felt confused. They were about to have a fight, he knew that from experience with her, but he didn't know why or what it was even about.

"I just asked a question," James said.

"Well, I just came for a visit," she snapped. "But apparently I need to have an ulterior motive."

"You don't need to have any motive, ma'am," he grumbled then pressed himself back onto the bed, lips shut tight to keep himself from saying more.

After a moment the bed shook slightly and James looked up at Olivia and was surprised by how pale she was.

"Olivia?"

She waved him off as she began to sway and reached behind her in an attempt to find the chair. She faltered and grabbed more tightly to the bed's side rail.

James grabbed the call box and pressed the button. The moment he heard it connect he called for help. He was surprised when the door flew open almost immediately and George Mansfield entered, gun drawn.

It took George only a second to assess the situation and run to Olivia's side. She leaned into him and only his fear for her stifled James' jealousy.

"I just need to sit," Olivia said weakly.

George pulled the chair over and helped her into it.

A nurse entered and began to ask Olivia questions such as when she had eaten last--lunchtime, an hour ago--and if she was getting enough sleep. Then the nurse asked Olivia if she'd been able to keep down her lunch of if she was still experiencing morning sickness. When Olivia refused to answer, only shaking her head, James grimaced.

"For Christ's sake, woman, just tell her."

Both James and the nurse gave surprised looks at George.

"She's still been sick, after nearly everything she eats," he explained.

"George, please," Olivia pleaded. "Don't. They'll not let me go back to work."

James began to feel as ill as Olivia looked.

The nurse left quickly and returned a moment later with an IV pole and another nurse who carried an IV bag filled with a clear liquid and the rest of the tubing to set up the IV.

They quickly got Olivia settled back in the chair and had the IV in place before she could utter much of a protest.

Not that George would have allowed it, James thought.

"That should help," the nurse said as she put Olivia's feet up on a footrest that had apparently been under James' bed. "Just sit here until the bag is done and we'll see how you feel."

"How long will that take?" Olivia asked.

"About an hour," the nurse replied.

Olivia looked defeated.

After a few minutes of silence in which George kept his eyes on Olivia waiting to see if she would be alright, he excused himself, barely affording James a glance, and left the room.

She looked so forlorn and James' was forced to stamp down the memory from the living room of the safe house after her husband had been killed. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths as he tried to bring himself back into the present.

He had to face facts. He knew Olivia's file, knew she never had a child, knew she was never married to a James Bond or a James Smythe or a James Anyone. This was all just selfishness on his part and he couldn't allow it to continue. James wasn't one who liked to think of himself last. He served her, he did her bidding, he even loved her, but it was the need to suppress himself around her that made him angry.

"You don't have to do this," James told Olivia.

"Of course, I do," Olivia retorted. "The nurse said it will help."

James suppressed his desire to role his eyes. He wasn't sure if it was the pregnancy that was making her so obtuse or if she was being intentional just to piss him off.

"You don't have to keep the baby," he explained.

"You don't want it now?" she asked.

"That's not what I said," he started.

"That's exactly what you said," Olivia cut him off.

The door opened and a doctor strode in. James narrowed his eyes at the man. He was giving Olivia a disdainful look that James couldn't see a reason for.

"So you decided you'd not mention how sick you were?" he said to her.

"I thought it would get better," Olivia said, not looking up at the doctor.

The doctor shook his head.

"I'm going to recommend bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy," he said.

"What?" Olivia and James asked in unison.

"That's overkill," James said.

"I have to go back to work soon," Olivia told the doctor.

"You know my views on the matter, Miss Hardy," he replied and he emphasized the "Miss."

"This is ludicrous," James said. "Olivia, get a second opinion. You don't need to be on permanent bed rest just for morning sickness."

"So you are a doctor are you?" the doctor turned to James. "I've heard you are the father, but that doesn't qualify you in this matter."

"Martin will never allow you to do this," James said.

He glanced at Olivia who had become unusually silent. He could see that this was a bit much for her, her blood sugar mustn't have gone up enough yet.

"I only have to answer to M," the doctor said.

Then he turned back to Olivia.

"Miss Hardy, you can protest my decision to M," he told her, then he turned and left the room.

James stared at the door for a moment after the doctor left.

"Well, that was the worst bedside manner I've ever experienced," he said. "Is he your regular doctor?"

"He's the OB/GYN," she told him. "I have to see him now because I'm pregnant."

"Well, you talk to M and appeal this," he said. "Making a woman lay in bed, god, this is as bad as them forcing me to stay in bed."

He turned to look at her again and found a stricken look on her face.

"Should I call the nurse?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I'm not ready for this," she said.

James sighed.

"You don't have to do this," he said. "If you don't want the child, if it's a hindrance to your life, then you can make that decision."

She studied him as she was wont to and it made James feel almost normal again. He relaxed back into the bed.

"I want to do this," she said.

"But you just said you weren't ready," James reminded her.

"For marriage," she said. "I'm not ready to get married and submit to anyone."

James gave her a surprised look.

"Submit?" the word felt like acid on his tongue. "Who said anything about that?"

"You just told me what to do," she said.

James tried to recall what she was talking about.

"You told me to appeal the decision to M," she explained.

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He needed to word this carefully or he knew they were going to have more problems.

"That isn't what I meant," he said. "I assumed you would appeal, why wouldn't you?"

"Then why did you say that?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"I guess I just wanted you to know I agreed," he told her.

She was silent as she thought about his words, then she leaned back in the chair and gave him a weak smile.

"I don't want you to be a submissive wife," he said after several minutes. "That sort of thing has never appealed to me."

There was silence again for a minute before Olivia quietly said, "Thank you." James could hear the relief in her words and it brought him a little comfort as he drifted off to sleep moments later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, you thought they'd stay all lovey-dovey? They just hadn't spent enough time together yet. :D


	36. Chapter 36

"Did you hear the rumor?" George asked as they drove away from HQ.

"M's retirement?" Olivia replied without interest as she stared out the window.

Despite the doctor's recommendation, Olivia had been back to work for a month now. It was desk duty, but Martin had hinted that there would be an upcoming promotion to group supervisor that she should consider putting her name in for. Today's rumor had only confirmed her suspicion that it was Martin's position itself he was referring to. If she mentioned it to James, she wondered if he'd be able to keep himself quiet. It was so important to him that she become M that he might let something more slip than he already had.

Olivia sighed as she felt that weight descend on her again. The idea of becoming M had been a fantasy before James, hadn't it? She had known she would fight to go as far as she could in Six, but as she looked around her, M's chair seemed out of reach. She was determined to make the path of women who followed her somewhat easier by fighting to get into every door closed to her, so she knew at some future point, she would vie for leadership. 

When it had only been a thought, things had been clear to her. Fight. Get as far as she could. Leave the mantle for younger women to carry even farther. 

A tug in the back of her mind, that stubborn part of her that never quite anything, told her she was lying to herself. She wanted that position and she would do everything within her power to get it.

James had thrown a wrench into those plans.

First, he'd told her that she would indeed be M some day. The information left Olivia feeling unsteady. What was there to fight for if it was inevitable? 

Now, of course, in her momentary lapse of reason, James and she had made a child that, for reasons she didn't want to think about, she wanted to have and raise, with James. As George had correctly surmised, James did things to Olivia's thinking that made her act differently. There was something about James, something outside the information he carried with him about her future, that drew her to him.

"Yes," George answered.

Olivia tried to focus on his words. 

"Do you think Martin will be in the running?"

"I don't know," she said quietly.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,' then," he said.

Olivia gently hit his arm with the back of her hand.

"George, please," she said. "I don't want to think about it right now."

She sighed and turned back to the window.

Two months of living in the safe house and they were no closer to finding the threat. She just wanted it done with so she could move on. She wanted more than a life in hiding for her child.

James was up and about these days. That was perhaps a bit more hopeful than it should be. He was trying to learn to walk again, and giving it a good go. He would push himself too hard, however, and then it would take a day or two to recover. His physio was exasperated and James argued with the man constantly. At first, Olivia had tried to intervene and reason with James. The two of them would fight and that would in turn upset George, who was still eyeing James with more than a bit of suspicion. Olivia tried to stay out of it for the most part now.

It was all just to tiring. She knew it was mostly pregnancy related, but that only made it worse for her. So far she'd been able to wait until she was alone to allow herself any amount of momentary weakness. She couldn't falter for a moment in front of anyone except George or Martin. She would be up for Martin's position, that had already been intimated to her by M himself, though she suspected he was also hinting that she might consider terminating her pregnancy or giving the child up for adoption. 

Olivia thought through her last conversation with M. There had been things that bothered her, but she didn't dare ask the questions that flooded her mind. From Martin, she knew that M had been as thorough as he could be regarding James. But M had said nothing about his investigation to her. She wondered if he was leaving all that to Martin, who she now knew M wanted to promote upon his retirement.  But there was something unsettling in the situation, something that made Olivia wonder if he knew more than he let on. 

Then there was the timing of M's retirement. Why now? They were still investigating a possible mole, or more than one, so why would he leave in the middle of all of it? 

The situation gave Olivia a headache, not for the least reason that, unless she became M, she knew there was no way to find out. Those files were guarded tightly and she wasn't about to go snooping and make herself look like an enemy agent. 

By the time George pulled up to the safe house, Olivia was so exhausted from work, and the stress of James's situation, and the pregnancy that she barely made it to her bed before she collapsed. George followed her in and slid her shoes off and pulled a blanket over her. Olivia only grunted her thanks.

* * *

The first time Olivia's skirt wouldn't button around her waist, she cried. Not quietly, not a sniffle, but a loud wail, and she threw herself onto her bed as she used to when she was a girl and her parents refused to give her what she wanted. George found her there and she blurted everything out that she knew she could tell him starting with the skirt and ending with her greatest fear, that things would not work out between her and James because they were obviously incompatible.

George listened and stroked her back. She didn't expect him to defend James, and he didn't. When she was done, she sat up next to him and leaned onto his arm. He put it around her and they sat silently until Olivia decided she'd have to pull out an old skirt with an elastic waistband.

George took her clothes shopping that weekend. And when he took her to visit James on Sunday afternoon, the two men looked at each other in such a way that made Olivia think that maybe James might be jealous of George. She wasn't keen on the jealous, protective type of man. She had her own friends and no man, not even a husband and the father of her child, was going to tell her she couldn't have them.

She and James fought again before she left.

George dropped her off at the safe house where her weekend guard was waiting inside.

Olivia quietly cried herself to sleep that night.

* * *

"This isn't the first time this has happened," Olivia chastised.

James glared at her.

"I am just trying to get better," he growled.

"By pushing yourself until you break," she snapped.

"I thought you would expect nothing less than that from me," he said, bitterness dripping from each word.

Olivia felt herself begin to shake with rage.

"How dare you," she hissed. "You are not to bring anything from the future into the conversation, you know that."

James didn't look like he cared at all. He looked like he might even tell her more about their far future together, just to spite her.

The door swung open behind her and Olivia heard the nurse's voice.

"Mr. Smythe," she said sweetly. "I've heard you're in need of a stronger pain killer today."

Olivia tried to calm herself by staring at the corner of the ceiling. In a moment, however, she noticed a shift in James' demeanor. Then, without warning, he pushed himself quickly forward with his walker. She ducked out of the way, no time to even form the question of why he was doing it.

A voice growled in anger, but it was a woman's voice, not James's. Olivia rolled onto her back and saw the two struggling over a hypodermic in the nurse's hand.

The thing that struck her the most was just how strong the nurse was. James wasn't in peak condition, but if she'd been an ordinary nurse, he should have been able to overpower her by now.

He had her pinned well, however. And considering how weak his legs were, that was a feat in itself. Olivia moved to get up and help but he yelled at her to stay back. She took in the nurse one more time and discovered that in her other hand she had a small knife.

"Who do you work for?" James asked in Russian.

The nurse laughed and answered in German.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" 

Olivia forced herself up and grabbed her purse off the bed. She pulled her gun out and turned back to the fight, pointing it at the nurse.

She heard the knife rattle to the floor and walked far around her to kick it out of the way. She knew now the syringe was the more lethal weapon. 

"George," she shouted, hoping he wasn't too far away to hear.

James yelled out, raised himself up, and slammed his head into the nurse's. Her head snapped back and hit the floor with a thud, momentarily dazing her. James twisted her mostly slackened wrist again and the syringe fell to the floor.

George entered as Olivia kicked the syringe away, keeping her gun trained on the nurse. She thought James would stop the struggle at that point, but the nurse made another attempt at him, but with her teeth this time. James somehow managed to flip them over and got himself behind her. His arm was wrapped around her neck and she began to claw at him as he cut off her oxygen.

"James," Olivia yelled, realizing he intended to kill the nurse. "James stop! We need to question her."

His free hand went to the side of the nurse's head obviously intending to break her neck. 

"James! Stop!" Olivia yelled, this time with more command in her voice.

He cursed, then practically threw the woman away from him. George had her a second later and pulled her wrists behind her back to cuff them together.

James lay back on the floor, gasping. His breathes were labored and his face was etched with pain. The door opened behind her and she and George turned to train their guns on whoever had entered. But it was only George's back up agents. They helped George take the nurse from the room and for a few moments, Olivia and James were alone.

"You really are a double-0," she whispered.

He looked up at her.

"You doubted me?" he asked.

"I never had seen you in action," she said. "I don't know what to say."

"No, now" he responded. "You doubted me now."

She shook her head and furrowed her brows to indicate her confusion.

"You called for George," he said. "You didn't think I could handle it?"

Olivia rolled her eyes then glared down at him.

"Shall I call him back in here now?" she snapped. "You can both drop your pants and I can measure you?"

James averted his eyes, openly chastised.

"Really, James," she shook her head. "I am tired of this. There is no reason to be jealous of George. He and I are friends. We've never been more and never will be more."

James refused to look at her even when the nurses were finally allowed inside to help him into bed.

Olivia sat stiffly in a chair out of the way and watched them. When they left, neither she nor James spoke. There was something in the way James wouldn't look at her after she protested that she and George would never be more than friends. It was that cold look he got when he was trying to act the agent and make himself unreadable to her. Unfortunately, she had already learned that mannerism of his and knew it meant that he had information he couldn't share about the future. 

She couldn't allow herself to be curious. She wanted to think that it was because the idea of she and George together was preposterous, but she knew that was a lie. She and George were far more compatible than she and James probably ever would be. She loved James in a way she'd never loved anyone else, though. 

Finally, she got up and moved next to James. Then, in not her first impulsive move where James was concerned, she crawled onto the bed and lay down next to him.

"James, I love you," she said. "I wish that was enough for you."

She watched his face as her words sank in. It was as if that never occurred to him.

He sighed, then kissed her.

"It is," he said. "I'm sorry. I just, well, I've always."

He was cut off by someone else entering the room.

"Really?" She heard George. "I'd tell you both to get a room, but I suppose this is a room."

Olivia shook her head in amusement.

"Well, we have her in custody," George said. "The doctor is looking her over then M is going to question her. Do you want to be there?"

Olivia considered it for only a moment, then her body suddenly began to feel the event as her adrenaline level dropped.

She shook her head and lay it down on James' shoulder.

She didn't see the worried looks between George and James.

"Are you alright?" James asked.

"Just tired," she said.

"Alright, then," George said after a few seconds. "I'll make sure everything is taken care of here and then I'll take you home. You'll have to be debriefed in the morning."

She heard the door open and shut again, then felt James pull her more tightly against him.

"That's not like you," he said.

Olivia nearly snapped that he wouldn't know, but then remembered that he did know.

She looked up at him and saw his concerned look.

"I really am just tired," she said. "I mean, utterly exhausted."

"Did you sleep last night?" he asked.

"It's difficult now," she admitted. "I can't even imagine how I'll sleep once the baby gets bigger."

They were quiet for several more minutes before Olivia spoke again.

"Why were you going to kill her?" she asked. "It served no purpose."

"She tried to kill you," he said. "She was going toward you with whatever was in that syringe."

"What does that have to do with it?" she asked. "I thought double-0s killed on orders."

He chuckled.

"Well, we do so in self-defense sometimes," he said.

"How was that self-defense? she asked.

He took a deep breath and held her more tightly.

"It's always self-defense where you are concerned," he said.

When she realized what he was saying, she started to protest.

He hushed her.

"Sleep," he said. "Don't think about that."

She wanted to argue, but that would push them back into dangerous territory. She had already had too many revelations about the future over the past several months. She didn't relish any more.


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm home sick today so y'all get a chapter in the middle of the week.
> 
> This story is from Martin's POV. Ever since I read Dune I prefer everyone's POV so next chapter will be George, finally. :) I'm sure tayryn is looking forward to that. ;)

Martin settled in at the small table in the corner James’s hospital room in the medical ward at MI6. Across from him, James waited patiently. At least he appeared patient. If there was one thing James seemed particularly good at it was masking what he was thinking and feeling.

James been in some level of the business for a while. Martin could tell that on their first meeting. Working with him in Paris, Martin saw James had excellent skills, but he didn’t trust anyone. The lone exception was Olivia. Martin had considered that it was because James knew Olivia  in the time he came from, but as the months wore on, nothing changed. No matter how long he worked with James, Martin began to believe he’d never gain James' trust. 

George felt the same. He worried about James’s coldness. He and Martin had even argued several times about James’s relationship with Olivia. Martin was constrained by M and could not explain to George James’ circumstance. But the more he and George argued, the more Martin realized it would change nothing. While George had agreed to accept Olivia’s decisions, he was still wary of James.

Martin mentally shook those thoughts from his head to begin his interview.

"I spoke with your doctor and physio," Martin began. "Both said that what you did was impossible."

James stared back at him with a slightly amused look on his face. Martin thought this probably wasn't the first time someone had said such a thing about James' actions.

He reached over to the tape recorder on the table and pressed the record button.

Martin spoke the date and the names and the reason for the interview, then began the debrief.

"Alright, James, in your own words, tell me what happened in this room yesterday afternoon at 3pm."

James began his explanation. It was perfunctory, just as it had been after Paris and after his kidnapping by SMERSH. The man knew his work and had been trained well. 

Trained by Olivia. Martin tried not to let that go to his head. He'd been right about Olivia all along. He'd seen the potential from the day she'd been assigned to him. His hands had been tied by M from the beginning. Martin usually had to consider what the possible outcomes of each assignment were in hopes that where ever he placed Olivia she would end up being far more than the honey trap M seemed to think was the only reason Six hired young women. Though now, after Bonn, M had finally been forced to admit that Olivia was everything Martin had told him she was.

The short of Bond's briefing was that his attention had been drawn to the nurse because she was new. He'd known he had to be cautious about who was in his room because Martin had a guard, usually George, on Olivia. 

James gave him a challenging look, but Martin said nothing.

The nurse had appeared perfectly normal. Her mannerisms wouldn't have drawn any attention except to someone like James. It was the way she glanced at Olivia as she walked toward James that had told him she had an intended target. Her eyes rested on her for too long to be just a passing glance. 

After that, everything was immediately drawn into focus. She was attempting to hide the syringe, even though he knew she had it, which also indicated that she had an ulterior motive. She had only a split second in which she took a slight step toward Olivia and James surged forward. As he went for her, he threw his walker and it knocked her feet out from under her allowing James more opportunity to get the upper hand he knew he couldn't standing. 

The rest was as Olivia had already told Martin. Though both were leaving something out. Olivia had been troubled by the event, but wouldn't say what had troubled her. He would have to try to get it out of James, though if it meant protecting Olivia, even on a personal level, James was not likely to say.

"What was your conversation after?"

James only stared at him, his face unreadable. Damn if that didn't remind him of trying to get information out of Olivia that she was not going to share.

Martin nodded, conceding defeat. He officially ended the interview and turned off the recorder. Then he asked the question again.

"It was personal," James finally answered.  

Martin felt a sense of surprise because it constituted a level of trust in him which James had not given him before. 

"James, I should tell you that M is quite impressed," Martin said. "I might be able to get you a training job when you are healed."

"I was under the impression that I would never be healed," James said.

He might have meant to be sardonic, but Martin couldn't tell from his face. In this James was his own man, at least where Martin's comparisons to Olivia were concerned. She would have given him a derisive look to cue him in that she was disgusted. But James only gave him that hard look he always had on his face.

"Well, I'm no longer sure about the doctors and their prognosis," Martin said.

He began to pack his notebook and tape recorder back into his briefcase. He then locked it.

"We haven't been able to get the nurse to say anything yet," Martin said. "We are almost certain she's working with SMERSH, though."

"Because there've been threats to Olivia," James stated.

This time, though James' face and posture remained stoic, Martin thought he detected a hint of concern in James' voice.

"Yes," Martin said. 

This time James showed more emotion, then he did something Martin had read in James' medical report. He simply stared, eyes going out of focus, and became obviously unaware of his surroundings. Martin had worked with him quite a lot in Paris and had never seen this behavior. The doctor had suggested it had to do with the trauma of the torture he'd received. 

In a moment, James blinked, took a deep breath, and looked around the room as if he had just woke in an unexpected place and was trying to get his bearings.

"Alright, James?" Martin asked.

James nodded and blinked several more times before looking back up at Martin

"I wondered if you might not ask George to come by some Saturday when he's not working?" James asked.

"Mansfield?" Martin was again surprised.

James nodded.

"I suppose by "when he's not working" you mean when Olivia's not here," Martin said.

James nodded again.

Martin agreed, picked up the case, and left the room.

The guard had been doubled and was in the open now. There was no use pretending Six didn't know. Martin looked around and assessed his people before heading down the hall to the lift.

James wanted to talk with George. Martin wasn't sure if he really wanted to know what for. He had a good idea, but that idea wasn't good. If James was going to try to dissuade George from continuing his relationship with Olivia, she would--well, Martin didn't want to consider what Olivia would do.

What George and Olivia had wasn't actually as hard to put a pin on as people thought. People were  blinded by the fact that they were a man and a woman and, in Martin's experience, people generally thought only one thing could go on between a man and a woman and that was sex. But George and Olivia were friends in the deepest sense of the word. There didn't need to be anything sexual between them for them to be close. 

Fierce was the word Martin had landed on to describe their relationship. That was what he saw in their loyalty toward each other. They were as close as people say brothers could be, but Martin had never been close to either of his brothers so that had never worked for him. They would do anything for each other. Martin had the feeling that if it came down to it, and the choice was between crown and each other, both Olivia and George would choose each other.

He wondered now at the wisdom of putting them in the field together so much. But they had worked seamlessly. Martin never had to listen to George go on and on about "working with a woman." And, after a few starts, it became obvious that Olivia trusted George as much as she trusted herself. Their record together was as good as their record apart and Martin had not really thought about how close the two had grown until George decided to get married.

It had completely floored Martin when he heard that George was engaged, but not to Olivia. It made no sense to him. Though he knew there was nothing sexual about their relationship, Martin couldn't imagine the two of them apart. And he knew that wives were not keen on their husbands having female friends. It had been a rough go and now their relationship had taken on an almost clandestine feel. The two would sneak off to the pub after work after George called his wife to say he was working late. Olivia would take a few days holiday when George was sent away to a conference and Martin didn't have to ask to know that she had gone to whatever city George was in. 

Now things would get more complicated. James was a decent person, at least from what Martin had seen so far. He loved Olivia, of that Martin had no doubt. But James was still man and Martin had observed the jealousy James displayed toward George. 

One thing he knew about Olivia, though, was that she would have no man tell her what she could not do. She would probably even go on and try to raise this child by herself if James so much as hinted an attempt at control over her. And that would, at least for all practical purposes, end her career at Six. The world may have embraced free-love, but Six was not the world. It was still the so-called "good old boys" running the shots and a unmarried mother was not going to be anything more than a secretary or a steno pool girl.

Martin took a breath as the lift opened to M's office floor, then tried to get his mind back to work as he walked down the hall, past the smaller offices of the double-0s. 

Somehow, he knew, he had to make sure that Olivia made this very walk as M some day. It had been a hope of his. He'd always known she had everything it would take to be the first woman to take on the mantle. Meeting James and learning that she did, in some timeline--which was something Martin tried not to figure out because it was mind boggling--become M. 

But he'd have to think about that later. For now, he had to make sure she lived long enough to even take over his position. 

 


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George has known Olivia for as long as he's been at Six. There was a time when they were inseparable. But time has changed all of that. He knows he has to let go, he just hopes Olivia will be happier than him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> George's POV. 
> 
> Warning: English stereo-typing of the French.

As George took the lift to medical, he tried to keep himself calm by reminding himself that what mattered was Liv.

No, not 'Liv' to him anymore. It would have to return to formalities. He couldn't have a "pet name" for her, as some called it. Now it would only be 'Olivia.'

He forced himself not to think about that. Olivia obviously was in love with James and that should be the only thing that mattered to him. Still, George feared this conversation with James.

James and Olivia had to marry, that was inevitable. And, having been married for two years now, as well as having had to deal with a few of Olivia's previous boyfriends, George knew that James was going to finally tell him to back away from Olivia because it was inappropriate for a woman to have close male friends.

The same thing had happened when he was getting married. When the wedding had been planned, George had wanted Olivia to be his best "man." His fiancée had refused and finally his mother had to intervene and told him that not only was that not acceptable, he really needed to stop having female friends because it looked bad.

He supposed now that that was when he really understood how much Olivia meant to him. It was not romantic or sexual, the way some often suggested, it was deeper. He'd never been able to find the right word, only what he felt.

It was inevitable, though, that James would want to assert his rights as "the man" over Olivia. George had watched every relationship Olivia had attempted crumble over that point. The very thing the men said drew them to Olivia was the thing they tried to destroy and George had finally figured out that it meant the same thing. They saw Olivia as an independent woman and hated her for it so they tried to control her, probably to prove to themselves that they were still better than her. Fortunately, until now, Olivia had always stood her ground. Now there was a child involved so everything was different.

George took a deep breath as he exited the lift and walked to James' room.

He found James sitting up in his bed reading. He looked up at George as he entered. His look was different today. Usually he looked cold and calculating, assessing each person to find their weakness. Today he looked almost like a normal person.

George had wondered often where James had come from. He'd been told by Martin and Olivia that James was a contact who had worked with Olivia for years. Two things made George suspicious about this story. First, Olivia and he had been in the field together for years before George had taken his current position and he'd never heard her mention James. The other was that, though Olivia was an excellent liar, he had learned her tells over the years and she was definitely lying about James.

Then, two days ago, there had been the attack on Olivia in this very room. She had called for him and when he entered, he found James wrestling with an obviously trained agent. The physio told him there was no way an ordinary man recovering from James' injuries would be capable of defending himself the way James had. He'd had to have some previous training. The physio's comment had sealed George's belief that James was an agent. George's only question now was for whom was James an agent?

Was he CIA or, since he had tagged onto her in Paris, DGSE? He hoped it wasn't the latter. The French were insufferable. He couldn't imagine Olivia even getting involved with a French man.

But if he was an allied agent, why was Six giving him a new identity? More likely, he was KGB or Stassi, and that worried George. Even if James had defected, there was no way Olivia would get much farther in Six now that she was involved with him. George had never imagined Olivia giving up everything she had worked for, for a man she barely knew. It scared the hell out of him.

James set aside the book, an anthology of Wodehouse, which George filed away to place in his image of James he was trying to build.

"I'm glad you came," James said as he waved toward the chair by the bed.

George sat down.

"Martin said you wanted to see me," he said, playing along with the pleasantries.

James nodded.

"Yes, I need you to do me a favor," James aid.

George nodded politely. Internally, he felt a dull ache begin to gnaw at his chest.

"I'd like you to go 'round to the jewelers, a good, reputable one, and get me a ring for Olivia," he said.

George was surprised by this request. But it felt as if James was twisting a knife inside him.

"You can call a jeweler to come to you," George told him.

"I'm sure I can, but they won't bring me the right ring," James gave George a meaningful look.

George realized that this was a test. James was prodding to see exactly what George felt for Olivia. Well, if that was the way it was going to be, and if

James was going to ask him to step away as Olivia's friend, George wasn't going to hold anything back.

He set his jaw and he replied.

"And I would?" he asked with a forced smile.

James noticeably caught George's change in demeanor and raised his brows slightly, then he forced himself back to that normal looking gaze he had when George had entered.

"Yes," James said. "It has to be a sapphire."

James paused and George felt it like a weight. He knew the answer James expected and knew also that if he gave it, James would think he understood how George felt for Olivia.

So be it, thought George. He knows nothing, and quite possibly understands less.

"You want a stone the colour of her eyes," he stated.

James gave him a lopsided smile and nodded.

"Exactly," he said.

"And you trust me to do that?" George asked.

"Well, I'd have asked Martin, but I don't think he'd have gotten the colour right," James told him. "He cares about Olivia, but not the way you do."

George had never desired to come undone more than he did at that moment. He'd definitely need a drink after this. And it was a good thing he'd decided against one before.

He nodded politely instead and gave James as fake a smile as he could.

James glanced away from him nervously, which surprised George even more. Was James intimidated by him? He hadn't seemed so before today. Maybe it was because Olivia had always been with them when they saw each other. Was James just putting on a show for her. That made no sense to George so he waited to see what James would say or do.

"You love her," James said, turning back to George.

George held his gaze for several heartbeats before answering.

"If that's what you want to call it," he replied.

"Well, if it's not love, what is it?" James asked.

"Does it matter?" George asked in return.

James rubbed his hands over his face.

"Look, George, I don't want to be your enemy," James told him. "You are very important to Olivia and she'd like us to get along, alright?"

George waited to reply until he had recovered from the surprise of James' statement. He decided he'd just get to the point. Why delay the inevitable?

"I don't see why that matters," George told him. "Since it won't be like I'm seeing her much outside of work."

There, he'd said it. Put words to his greatest fear. It hurt like hell. It was like someone cutting his chest with a jagged knife.

Outwardly he gave James a cold look.

For his part, James seemed confused.

"What's happening that you won't be seeing her anymore?" he asked.

George closed his eyes. The bastard was going to draw this out. It seemed so childish. How ever did Olivia get involved with him?

"You're getting married," George said.

James, in turn, stared back at George. He looked as if he truly didn't understand what George was saying.

"Do you have some sort of rule about not getting drinks with married women?" James asked.

"No," George replied. "But their husband's generally do."

"Ah," James said, drawing it out as he finally understood what George was saying.

Then he chuckled.

"I knew you didn't care for me much, but I didn't realize you also thought I was a complete idiot," James said, still laughing.

When George said nothing, James continued.

"Do you really think Olivia would ever tolerate that?" James asked. "I don't see how you could. You know her better than I do."

"Yes," George admitted. "But things are different, aren't they? She's having a baby."

James let out a slow breath and nodded.

"I see why you might be concerned," James said.

Concerned was hardly the word George would use, but he remained silent.

"I don't really think it will change her that severely, George," he said. "At least, I certainly hope it doesn't."

George considered James' words for a moment before replying.

"So you are saying that even though you believe I am in love with Olivia, you will not have a problem with us remaining close friends after you two are married?"

James furrowed his brow.

"Well, yes," he said cautiously. "But, um, why did you just call her Olivia?"

"That's her name," George said.

"But you never call her that, you only call her Liv," James said.

"Well, yes, but I imagine that would not be appropriate now, would it?" George told him.

James looked down at his hands before returning to George.

"You've been through this before?" he asked.

"Been through what?"

"Olivia and a boyfriend," James said.

"A few times," George replied.

"And they've had issues with you?" James asked.

"Typically," George nodded.

James relaxed back onto the bed and smiled.

"Well, I have no issue with you," James said. "You are Olivia's best friend. You were an agent with her and you kept her alive and you have always supported her.

"Look, George," he said. "I do not want to change Olivia at all. I've already fucked things up enough, don't you think?"

George stared at James, gauging his sincerity.

"I don't think she looks at it that way," George said. "She loves you."

James immediately sobered. He looked like an agent who had just been briefed on what could be the most important mission of his career.

"She does," he said.

He was silent a moment and George waited. He'd never seen a man take something like that so seriously. Most men would smile or shrug. George was beginning to think James wasn't like the others at all.

"She was very angry with me the other day," he said. "After the attack.

"I was put out that she called you for help, even though I knew I needed it," he said.

James sighed and shook his head.

"If she had helped me, then I don't think it would have been as big of a problem for me," he continued. "But she couldn't, I realized later. She had the gun on her, and if she'd tried to physically help, we wouldn't have had that back up.

"And," James took a shaky breath. "That agent probably knew about the pregnancy and if she'd got free, she, well, there are a few ways to hit a woman to cause her to miscarry.

"She made use of all the available resources," James said when he'd taken a few more breaths. "She did exactly what she should."

James was silent, which George was grateful for. He was still very upset over the event. It wasn't the first time they'd faced a double-agent, but it was always unnerving. This time the traitor had gotten very close to killing Liv. He was still going over events that day in his mind, trying to find if there was some way he could have known before it happened.

"She asked me later," James interrupted George's thoughts. "Why that love wasn't enough for me."

He shifted in the bed and grimaced before trying to adjust a pillow to support his back.

"I realized that I have always gauged her love by her reaction to my work," he admitted. "If I think for even a moment that she is displeased, or that she doubts me or distrusts me, I take it very negatively."

George thought about James' words. He certainly sounded as if he was talking about several years. Maybe James was one of those deeply embedded agents that George had always heard whispered about. Agents that did long-term jobs in sticky situations the Crown didn't even want to send double-0's in to do. That would certainly fit the scenario. And George could see Martin or M placing Liv in charge of an agent like that.

"If I keep acting that way," James continued. "Things won't work out at all, and I don't want that."

James looked back at George.

"I don't want her to lose you," he said. "I don't want things to change between the two of you. I trust her, completely."

George felt somewhat in shock. This certainly wasn't what he expected. His relief must have been visible because James smiled a little bigger.

"Oh, and one other thing," James said. "You have to call her Liv. It's not my name to use, it's yours, it's something between the two of you. I don't want that to change."

* * *

James stared across the room lost in his thoughts after George had left. That had been the most difficult conversation of his life. His feelings about George were often conflicting and he'd known after Olivia had admonished him the other day that he needed to do something about it.

Part of him was still jealous. That was the part that had known an older Olivia who had been happily married to George for many years. But as soon as he would have those feelings, the guilt would rush in. Either he felt that he was stealing that happiness from her, or that he was remaining silent when he really should be warning them about the future.

Sometimes he'd wake from nightmares about that night. Tanner's call, Olivia's red eyes, her slumped and defeated posture, the terror it created inside him.

He could usually pull himself out of his spiral when he reminded himself that Martin was certain James had changed the timeline. There was no record of James or a child in the file James had hacked so, obviously, things changed.

George wasn't going to die that way, he'd tell himself.

But then he'd realize that George and Olivia were never going to have that happiness they'd had, that relationship he'd been so envious of for so many years. And it would start all over.

James groaned and shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable. He was tired of the bed. He wanted to get out, he wanted to be with Olivia and hold her each night. When he was with her, he could briefly forget that he didn't belong here. When he was with her, he could briefly forget how much he had changed everything for her. She grounded him here, just as she would his younger self in the future.


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When George and Olivia were in the field, there was always that element of questionable actions that Martin, and even M, often ignored due to their high success rate. Of course, they are not in the field anymore so what could he possibly have to worry about now?
> 
> Or, George and Olivia plot to get into more trouble than they ever did even while facing down the Soviets.

"What do you want, Liv?" George asked.

To the casual observer it was apropos of nothing. He and Olivia were sitting in his office. George was finishing up his paperwork and Olivia was sitting across from him drinking a cup of tea.

She gave him an innocent look.

"What makes you think I want something?" she asked.

George nodded.

"Now I know it's something big," he said. "You never give anyone that 'sweet girl' look unless you want a huge favor."

She pouted and slumped back in the chair.

"Are you saying that all the mystery has gone out of our relationship, George?"

Her look turned into a smirk as George laughed.

She leaned forward quickly and set her cup on his desk.

"Yes, I do have a favor," she said.

The look she gave him made him nervous. He shook his head.

"Must I remind you that we are both currently in more than a _bit_ of trouble for hiding your pregnancy?"

"Oh, posh," she said derisively and with a dismissive wave of her hand.

George had to smile. So much like Liv to have moved beyond that and never given it another thought. She'd probably done so immediately after Martin's scolding.

"Vladivostok," she said.

It was only one word, but it brought all of George's senses to focus closely on the woman across from him.

"Oh, I see you remember it," she said.

She leaned back in the chair again. A smug look bloomed on her face because she knew she had him.

"That was a long time ago," he replied nervously.

Her smile only grew. His protest was weak and she knew George as well as he knew her.

"But you said it was worth it," she reminded him.

George grew warm and a blush spread across his cheeks.

"Oh, god, George," she admonished. "Have you turned into an old prude?"

"No," he said. "I just, well, I'm married now and, well."

His voice trailed off and Olivia's confidence faltered for a moment. She didn't want to get into a conversation with George about his marriage. He knew how she felt about his wife. She disliked the woman so much she refused to even say her name. She only referred to her as "That Woman."

She waited, hoping he wouldn't let his current situation affect the person she knew him to be. That Woman was ruining him. But Olivia couldn't think about it right now. She'd get angry and she didn't want to be angry, she needed him to do this for her.

He let out a long breath before speaking.

"I can't believe you are calling that in now," he chuckled.

Olivia was relieved.

"Oh, George, I am in agony," she said. "It's been."

She stopped and looked pointedly at her growing belly.

"Four months."

George rolled his eyes and laughed at her.

"Did I use the word 'agony?'" he asked.

"Something about the excruciating pain of need," she said. "Or some such nonsense as all that."

George laughed and shook his head. Then he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk.

"God, I can't believe we got away with that," he said. "I can still here Martin trying to interrogate out of us the reason we stayed an extra day."

"Do the two of you understand just how dangerous it is to send agents behind the Iron Curtain?" Olivia did her best impression of Martin.

"Well, at least he waited 48 hours to decide if he was going to send in an extraction team," George laughed. "That would have made it so much worse."

"I still think he'd banish us both to the Yukon if he ever learned we stayed just so you could fuck some Russian official's wife," she laughed. "With me standing as guard in case her husband returned home early."

They were both in high spirits now. This was how it had once been, they both thought. But they pushed aside any regret to enjoy the moment.

"I can't believe how crazy we were when we were young," George said.

"We were 30," Olivia reminded him. "Hardly young."

They both laughed at that as well. Then George got down to brass tacks.

"Alright, Doris, what's the plan?" he asked, using her code name during that mission.

"Martin changed the night guard to just one," she told him. "Since you are still technically in charge of the guards, you can relieve him for an hour."

George nodded. That would work, he thought.

"When?" he asked.

"After shift change and rounds tonight," she said.

"God, you aren't wasting time," he said.

"I'm dying, George," she whined.

"What did James say?" he asked.

"James doesn't know," she replied. "I'm going to surprise him."

George stared a moment.

"I hope James likes surprises," he told her.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It just means that, well, James seems to have a rather high view of you," George said. "When he finds out that you asked you best friend to guard his hospital room so you could seduce him."

George shrugged.

Olivia pursed her lips and furrowed her brow in thought.

"What do you mean 'a high view?'"

"I think he believes you will usually make the right decisions," George told her.

To his relief Olivia did not just brush him off.

Something flashed across her face. Some sort of understanding and George waited for her to explain. But she only shook her head and sighed.

"Probably just because I was an authority figure when we were working," she paused before finishing her sentence. "He just hasn't become accustomed to us as civilians."

George grimaced internally. Olivia had just lied to him again. God, this was infuriating. Still, aside from these little things, the more George got to know James, the more he understood why Olivia was doing what she was.

"He's good for you, Liv," George admitted.

She looked up in surprise.

"Really, you think so?"

George nodded.

"I've talked to him some and he sounds like he will be exactly what you need," George said.

"Yes," Olivia drew out the word and narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. "The two of you have gotten rather chummy of late."

"Would you rather we keep hating each other?"

"No," she said. "But I don't know how bad this will be for me."

George chuckled.

"I promise not to give away any secrets," he said. "I mean, he already knows your most horrifying one."

"What's that?" she asked.

"That you're the world's worst cook," he said.

She stuck her tongue out at him, then leaned forward and picked up her tea cup and took a sip. She grimaced.

"Gone cold," she muttered.

She put the cup down again and got back to her plotting.

"The shift change is at 1800," she told him. "The nurses do rounds after they talk with whomever they are replacing for the evening."

He knew all this information but he didn't interrupt.

"By 2000, maybe a little earlier, the coast should be clear," she said.

"And what if Martin decides to show up for a visit?" George asked.

"Oh, he won't," she said dismissively. "If you paid attention to people's personal information you'd know it's his wife's birthday."

George laughed again and shook his head.

"Well, I hope that covers it," he said. "I have no idea what we'll do if anyone figures out what's going on."

"No one is going to figure it out as long as you keep up your end," she admonished in her best authoritative voice.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and gave her a mock salute.

She stood to leave.

"Where are you going now?" he asked.

"I have to get dressed for the occasion and _you_ need to give your wife a viable alibi," she told him.

"Yes," he groaned. "That will probably be the most difficult part of the plan."

He glanced up at her just in time to catch a pitying look before she turned away and walked out the door.


End file.
